but it appeared when we examined the stores that six pounds alone
remained in the cask. This the men positively refused to touch. They
said that, divided, it would benefit nobody; that they hoped M'Leay and
I would use it, that it would last us for some time, and that they were
better able to submit to privations than we were. The feeling did them
infinite credit, and the circumstance is not forgotten by me. The little
supply the kindness of our men left to us was, however, soon exhausted,
and poor M'Leay preferred pure water to the bitter draught that
remained. I have been sometimes unable to refrain from smiling as I
watched the distorted countenances of my humble companions while
drinking their tea and eating their damper.

_March 17th._ We had been drawing nearer the Morumbidgee every day; and
the following afternoon, to our great joy, we turned our boat into the
gloomy and narrow channel of the tributary. Our feelings were almost as
strong when we re-entered it as they had been when we were launched from
it into that river, on whose waters we had continued for upwards of
fifty-five days; during which period, including the sweeps and bends it
made, we could not have travelled less than 1,500 miles.

Our daily journeys were short, and the head we made against the stream
but trifling. The men lost the proper and muscular jerk with which they
once made the waters foam and the oars bend. Their whole bodies swung
with an awkward and laboured motion. Their arms appeared to be
nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their
spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from mere
exhaustion they frequently fell asleep during their painful and almost
ceaseless exertions. It grieved me to the heart to see them in such a
state at the close of so perilous a service, and I began to reproach
Robert Harris that he did not move down the river to meet us; but, in