On the 18th July, the carts were abandoned, and they went on with
twenty-six pack horses, their sheep being reduced to fifty, and these
were rapidly falling away, as well as the horses, on the sour coast
grasses. They fared no better when they reached the range, or the spurs
of the Main Range, for the scrub still hemmed them in, and roads up and
down the rugged hills were hard to find; then to add to all, rain set
in.
On the 14th August, Carron took charge of the stores instead of Niblet,
who had been very extravagant with them, and also sent in false returns;
the allowance of flour was now reduced, and hopes were entertained that
with care it would hold out; but at first the supply provided was
insufficient. The horses too, began to knock up, and one after another
they were left behind dead or dying.
Crossing the dividing watershed, the party for some time travelled along
the heads of rivers running into the Gulf of Carpentaria, finding it a
great improvement in every way--thence they crossed back on to the
waters of the east coast once more, and their horses still giving in, one
by one, they fell back on them as an article of diet.
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