Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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Unaccustomed To Impose The
Least Restraint Upon Their Appetites Or Passions, They Considered It A
Hardship To Be Obliged To
Walk as long as any horses were left alive,
though they saw those horses falling behind and perishing from fatigue;
They considered it a hardship, too, to be curtailed in their allowance of
food, as long as a mouthful was left unconsumed; and in addition to this,
they had imbibed the overseer's idea that we never should succeed in our
attempt to get to the westward, and got daily more dissatisfied at
remaining idle in camp, whilst the horses were recruiting.
The excess of animal food they had had at their command for some few days
after the horse was killed, made them forget their former scarcity, and
in their folly they imagined that they could supply their own wants, and
get on better and more rapidly than we did, and they determined to
attempt it. Vexed as I had been at finding out they had not scrupled to
plunder the small stock of provisions we had left, I was loth to let them
leave me foolishly without making an effort to prevent it. One of them
had been with me a great length of time, and the other I had brought from
his country and his friends, and to both I felt bound by ties of humanity
to prevent if possible their taking the rash step they meditated; my
remonstrances and expostulations were however in vain, and after getting
their breakfasts, they took up some spears they had been carefully
preparing for the last two days, and walked sulkily from the camp in a
westerly direction.
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