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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I
Could Only, Therefore, Wrap A Blanket Around The Body Of The Overseer,
And Leaving It Enshrouded Where He Fell, Escape From The Melancholy
Scene, Accompanied By Wylie, Under The Influence Of Feelings Which
Neither Time Nor Circumstances Will Ever Obliterate.
Though years have
now passed away since the enactment of this tragedy, the dreadful horrors
of that time and scene, are recalled before me with frightful vividness,
and make me shudder even now, when I think of them.
A life time was
crowded into those few short hours, and death alone may blot out the
impressions they produced.
For some time we travelled slowly and silently onwards. Wylie preceding,
leading one of the horses, myself following behind and driving the others
after him, through a country consisting still of the same alternations of
scrub and open intervals as before. The day became very warm, and at
eleven, after travelling ten miles to the west, I determined to halt
until the cool of the evening. After baking some bread and getting our
dinners, I questioned Wylie as to what he knew of the sad occurrence of
yesterday. He positively denied all knowledge of it - said he had been
asleep, and was awoke by the report of the gun, and that upon seeing the
overseer lying on the ground he ran off to meet me. He admitted, however,
that, after the unsuccessful attempt to leave us, and proceed alone to
King George's Sound, the elder of the other two natives had proposed to
him again to quit the party, and try to go back to Fowler's Bay, to the
provisions buried there.
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