the top of the ground found the body of a European enveloped in a flannel
shirt with short sleeves, a piece of the breast of which I have taken;
the flesh I may say completely cleared from the bones, and very little
hair but what must have been decomposed; what little there was I have
taken. Description of body, skull, etc: marked with slight sabre cuts,
apparently two in number, one immediately over the left eye, the other on
the right temple, inclining over right ear, more deep than the left.
Decayed teeth existed on both sides of lower jaw and right of upper; the
other teeth were entire and sound. In the lower jaw were two teeth, one
on each side (four between in front) rather projecting as is sometimes
called in the upper jaw buck teeth. I have measured the bones of the
thigh and leg, as well as the arm, with a cord, not having any other
method of doing it. Gathered all the bones together and buried them
again, cutting a lot of boughs and other wood, and putting over top of
the earth. Body lies with head south, feet north, lying on face, head
severed from body. On a small tree, immediately south, we marked MK Oct.
21, '61. Immediately this was over we questioned the native further on
the subject of his death. He says he was killed by a stroke from what the
natives use as a sword (an instrument of semicircular form) five to eight
feet long and very formidable. He showed us where the whites had been in
camp when attacked. We saw lots of fish bones but no evidence then on the
trees to suppose whites had been there. They had certainly chosen a very
bad camp in the centre of a box scrub with native huts within 150 to 200
yards of them. On further examination we found the dung of camels and
horse or horses, evidently tied up a long time ago. Between that and the
grave we found another grave, evidently dug with a spade or shovel, and a
lot of human hair of two colours, that had become decomposed, on the skin
of the skull, and fallen off in flakes--some of which I have also taken.
I fancy they must all have been murdered here; dug out the new-formed
grave with a stick (the only instrument we had) but found no remains of