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Updated: June 21, 2025
Natives at the camp during my absence. Their attempts to steal. Native dogs. Tents struck to cross. Arrival of Mr. Finch. Murder of his men. Loss of his horses. And seizure of his stores by the natives. Destroy the boat and retire from the Karaula. Forced march to the Gwydir. Numerous tribes surround the party. Good effects of sky-rockets. Funeral dirge by a native female. Dog killed by a snake.
The bed above the junction was narrow but deep, and the permanent character of its banks gave to this channel the appearance of a considerable tributary, which it probably may be at some seasons, although then dry. In a section of the bank near the junction, I observed a bed of calcareous tuff. The passage of this channel was easiest for the carts at the spot where it joined that of the Gwydir.
During this time a settlement was formed at Moreton Bay, and subsequently removed to a better site on the Brisbane River. Cunningham, in 1827, left on a trip destined materially to effect the immediate progress of this new colony. Crossing Oxley's track, and entering the unexplored region, after naming the Gwydir and Dumaresque Rivers, he finally emerged on the Darling Downs.
The direction of the channels we had already crossed however was somewhat to the south of west and it was difficult to account for their waters otherwise than by supposing that they came from the Gwydir. We could trace their course to a remote distance by the smoke of the fires of the native population.
At twenty miles, the length of our ride, we fell in with a second chain of ponds, beyond which we saw another plain. We were delighted with the prospect of so favourable a country for extending our journey, and not less so with the apparent turn of the Gwydir, as indicated by its non-appearance in our ride thus far.
The wheels being repaired at three P.M. we turned our faces homewards, and exactly at sunset we reached the ponds where I had twice previously encamped. February 8. In our line of route back to the Gwydir we knew by experience that no water was to be found.
The general course of the Gwydir appeared to be nearly westward, between the first and last points thus ascertained by us; and this direction being also in continuation of the river seen so much further to the eastward by Mr. Cunningham we could entertain no doubt as to the identity.
We were all delighted however to meet such an obstruction, and I chose a favourable spot for our camp within a bend of the river; and I made arrangements for bringing forward the party left with Mr. White on the Gwydir, also for the construction of a boat by preparing a saw-pit and looking for wood favourable for that purpose.
After ascertaining that we were not so near as he hoped, and having reached the Gwydir and traced our route along its banks until he again recognised Mount Frazer, he returned at the end of the second day, when he found neither his tents nor his men to receive him, but a heap of various articles such as bags, trunks, harness, tea and sugar canisters, etc. piled over the dead bodies of his men, whose legs he, at length, perceived projecting.
We were exactly in the latitude of the Gwydir, the course of which was also westward. It was however a very new feature of the country to us, and after so much privation, heat and exposure the living stream and umbrageous foliage gave us a grateful sense of abundance, coolness, and shade. Trees of great magnitude give a grandness of character to any landscape, but especially to river scenery.
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