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Updated: April 30, 2025
The homeward journey is simply a record of unrelaxed toil day after day, Sturt and M'Leay taking their turn at the oar like the rest; added to which the blacks gave them far more trouble than before.
He had scarcely been separated from me twenty minutes, when one of the men came galloping back to inform me that no river was to be found that the country beyond the woods was covered with reeds as far as the eye could reach, and that Mr. M'Leay had sent him back for instructions. This intelligence stunned me for a moment or two, and I am sure its effect upon the men was very great.
He had been at the plain two months, and intended to have moved down the river immediately, had we not made our appearance when we did. I had sent M'Leay forward on the 20th with letters to the Governor, whose anxiety was great on our account. I remained for a fortnight on the plain to restore the men, but Hopkinson had so much over-exerted himself that it was with difficulty he crawled along.
We again landed on the south side of the channel, patiently to await the high water. M'Leay, myself, and Fraser, ascended the hills, and went to the opposite side to ascertain the course of the channel, for immediately above us it turned south round the hills. We there found that we were on a narrow tongue of land.
Having marked a tree preparatory to leaving the camp, M'Leay and I started at an early hour on an excursion of deeper interest than any we had as yet undertaken; to examine the reeds, not only for the purpose of ascertaining their extent, if possible, but also to guide us in our future measures.
M'Leay, to start down the river, and follow it wherever it went; whether ever to return again or not was for the future to determine. Clayton, the carpenter, was at once set to work upon the boat, or boats, for a tree was felled, a sawpit rigged up, and a small boat half the size of the whaleboat built.
Oxley terminated, which, from the state of country at the time, being then flooded, could not be ascertained; and that another river of no inconsiderable magnitude, fed by salt springs, was discovered by Captain Sturt on the 2nd February last, about 100 miles to the westward of the Macquarie, running to the southward and westward. By His Excellency's Command, ALEXANDER M'LEAY.
The men were sadly disappointed, and poor Clayton, who had anticipated a plentiful meal, was completely chop fallen. M'Leay and I comforted them daily with the hopes of meeting the drays, which I did not think improbable. Thus, it will appear, that we regained the place from which we started in seventy-seven days, during which, we could not have pulled less than 2000 miles.
It will be borne in mind, that we were now performing the earliest part of our task, and were going down with the stream. Both M'Leay and myself, therefore, encouraged any cheerfulness that occasionally broke out among them, and Frazer enlivened them by sundry tunes that he whistled whilst employed in skinning birds.
Oxley's line of route; and, as I found a ready volunteer in M'Leay, I gave the party in charge to Harris until I should rejoin him, and turned back towards the hills, with the intention of reaching them if possible. No doubt we should have done so had it not been for the nature of the ground over which we travelled, and the impossibility of our exceeding a walk.
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