Like You'd Understand, Anyway

When I was less than five years old, I am told, I dragged around behind me on a cord a legless horse to which I was inseparably attached. The poor thing bounced and tumbled along in a most pitiful way, as I remember. No one knew from whence it came. It was a carved lump of pine painted with a blue saddle. It had a mouth but no eyes. I slept with it and named it My Captain, to the puzzlement of those who gave it any thought.

April 23rd

Plagued by the flies, and the rain has brought out the death adders and other snakes. Eight-inch centipedes with ghastly jaws, fearless, mouse-sized scorpions, ubiquitous stinging ants. Men glad of moving on.

Browne at our officers' supper again lodged a complaint concerning the number of water casks we carry (two), which he sees as woefully inadequate. He reminded us all that we're doing what we've been expressly advised by those familiar with the country not to do: travel with no line of communication to our rear and no maps for our forward journey. His reassuring prudence was duly recorded. In order to demonstrate our congru-ency on this point I cited for him yesterday's resolution, which was “Take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.”

During heavy winds the dogs shelter in hollows, whining and barking to very little purpose.

April 24th

Finally, some natives. A small group: two men, four women, and a few children. They were camped on a sand hill and sat watching as we approached. The children were in a terrible fright, clinging to their mothers like opossum. The adults are very wiry and strong looking though they tend to be deficient in the front tooth. While we watched they cooked some mice in the hot sand itself and then devoured them entire, fur, entrails, and all, nipping off the tail with their teeth. I had with me a vocabulary of the language of the Murray natives but was unable to make them understand a word of it. We asked, by signs, where they derived their water, and they intimated that they depended on rain. They did so by lifting their hands and then pulling them quickly down while fluttering their fingers. Then they pointed where we were headed and shook their heads vigorously.

They were much taken with our appearance, and some of us do present a sight: Mabberly with his great buccaneer's hat; Beale with his peculiar facial scar. Mander-Jones with his filthy beard. And Hill's spectacles, which are so very small that I constantly wonder how he sees adequately through them. Purdie, the only one of our party to have met aborigines on their home ground before, informed us after we had moved on that they believe Europeans to be black fellows returned from the grave, gone white because of their new status as ghosts.

Tested the water in their water-hole and found it to be 107.8 degrees. Tonight the dogs are barking toward the point from which the wind is coming. One of the horses kicked Moorhouse's gun on the stock and shivered it to pieces. Hill has broken my watch.

April 27th

Dreadful passage. For three days now our road has lain over these abominable and rotten lands on which water has evidently subsided and whose surface the sun has cracked into deep fissures. Whenever the dray wheels drop into the holes it shocks the animals greatly. We are flanked as we proceed by great ridges of basalt and ironstone. Nothing seems tempered by weathering; all edges seem razor-sharp. There is much eurite underfoot. Mysterious columnar formations off to the west. Nearly all we survey seems unsuitable for cultivation. The temperature yesterday rose to 111 Fahrenheit; this morning, it fell to 38. Nights we huddle in flannel pantaloons and greatcoats. Days we suffer in the heat. How it is possible that the natives can withstand such extremes, unprovided as they are against the heat and cold?

Cuppage is now able to lift or carry very little. Hill fears his wound may be infected.

May 1st

Full of accidents today. Moorhouse's dray broke its axle-pole, and Gould's its rear wheel. The country is more open and worse in character. Rents and fissures so tremendous the cart-drivers are thrown from their seats. Mabberly has been admirably careful with the whaleboat, about which, considering the likelihood of her being so soon wanted, I am naturally nervous. Nothing cheering in the prospect to the N and NW.

One of the dogs has been lost — swallowed — in a strange dry salt lagoon comprised of gypsum and black mud. Its compatriots were hysterical with grief and upset. The approaches to the place were most unpleasantly spongy. The wind blows salt from it over the flats behind us like smoke. Old Fitz, our best draft horse, has a swelling on his near hind leg.

May 2nd

Stopped to give the animals a day of rest and to repair the drays. At a dry creek bed, some white mallow, which Gould gave to the horses. Nearer the creek a plant with a striped and bitter fruit. Perhaps some kind of cucumber.