Like You'd Understand, Anyway

We are all on foot to spare the horses. The stone, in no way rounded, is brutal to the feet. Gould complains incessantly of an excruciating pain in his forehead. Poor Cuppage has not been heard from for days, except to cry out whenever a drop or a crash shakes the whaleboat. Browne's horse has an inflammation of the mucus membrane. The casks are empty. At the first waterless halt, the horses would not eat and instead collected round me, my poor Captain so much afflicted that he tugged my hat with his teeth to claim attention. Called a halt and asked Moorhouse to reconnoiter the extent of the ridges to our NW from the vantage point of the ridge to our W. His climb provided him, regrettably, with no cover. He returned to pronounce it the most difficult task he had ever performed.

June 20th

Only three miles down a ravine to our E, a kind of natural oasis with a pool thirty to forty feet wide and nearly ten feet deep, situated beneath the shade of large stands of casuarina and mulga trees. Ample feed for the animals. Providence has guided us to the only place where our wants might be supplied for any extended amount of time, but has also here stayed our progress in a region soon to become forbidden ground.

Today completes the sixth month of our absence from Adelaide. How much longer we shall be out it is impossible to say. We still wait for winter rains. I am heartbroken at the delay. I remain of the full conviction that we're fifty miles or less from the Inland Sea. My only consolation is that the present situation is unavoidable.

June 27th

I have been neglecting my resolutions. Today's is “The happy man finds in some part of his soul a drop of patience.” I have been trying to chart our position and finding it impossible to put pencil to paper in this superheated tent. Have set the men to digging a chamber deep in the ground from which we might make our calculations.

June 30th

Beale has a pulmonary condition. Was bled yesterday and is better today. Mabberly has had an attack of inflammation of the lungs. Almost everyone is complaining of bleeding at the nose. We are all beset by symptoms of scurvy. My gums are so sore that I cannot take even porridge and have a vile taste of copper in my mouth, intensified by savage headaches. We all trust the symptoms will not increase, because soon we must move despite all risks and under any circumstances. Our diet is unwholesome. We must collect something in the way of a vegetable.

Cuppage is now insensible. We have discussed whether to send him back, but Hill has ventured that he would never survive the journey. Neither would whoever accompanied him, Browne added grimly. He has recently returned, his horse lathered and nearly broken, to report that the water-holes to our rear, at which we not six days ago found ample water, now have no moisture left in their beds. Our retreat is now cut off. We are bound here as fast as though we were on an ice floe in the great Arctic ocean.

July 1st

The barometer remains unyielding. Until it falls we have no hope of rain. I have reduced the allowance of tea and sugar. The men have become as improvident as aborigines. The inactivity is causing between us much vexation and anxiety. About thirty sheep remaining. Have set the men to repacking and inspecting the bacon and biscuit. The bran in which the bacon was packed is now entirely saturated and heavier than the meat. Our wax candles have melted. Our hair has stopped growing.

July 6th

I was born here in Australia, though this is not commonly known. The year of my tenth birthday, my brothers and I were sent to England with my mother's elder sister. We would not see our parents again for more than a decade. We lived with various relatives, always in close proximity to lives of enormous privilege. I began my education at a succession of schools, each of which I detested. Where were my friends? Where was that person for whom my happiness was an outcome to be desired? I led my brothers on a midnight ramble in search of home. They were eight and seven, and complained about neither the distance nor the cold. The younger, Humphrey, was shoeless. I was so moved by their fortitude that I became teary-eyed through the march. We begged milk from a farmer and were rounded up by a constable the following afternoon.

Browne too hated school. He remembered with fierce indignation a headmaster's remark that God had created boys' buttocks in order to facilitate the learning of Latin.

July 12th

I am much concerned about Browne. His behavior has alarmed both Mander-Jones and Hill. He has been refusing water and crouching for stretches out of the shade, hatless. I have tried to provide for him duties that will keep his faculties engaged. A flight of swifts passed over high to the S at twilight. They were beating against the wind.

July 24th