sticks we attached to them were unsuitable. When the first rocket
exploded it made the blacks laugh; at the explosion of the second we did
not hear them do so, as they had probably retired to some distance. After
the conduct of the blacks last night, and as they approached Gregory's
party in a similar way in the same neighbourhood, I fully intended to
shoot at them if we had a chance; but this morning, although three
approached to within one hundred yards of us while we were eating our
breakfast, I did not fire at them until Jemmy had warned them of our
hostile feeling towards them, and until they, instead of attending to the
warning they had received to be off, got most of their companions, who
were heavily loaded with clubs and throwing-sticks, to approach within
about the same distance of our position. I then gave the word and we
fired at them. The discharge wounded one and made the rest retire. Some
of us followed them up as far as the horses and again fired, and shot the
one who had been wounded previously. Afterwards Jackey slightly wounded
another when Jemmy and he went for the horses. Perhaps these blacks, as
they said they had visited the settled country, may have had a part in
the massacre of the Wills family. We followed the river up today for
about eighteen miles. About sixteen miles of the distance was along the
western bank. On that side the country is inferior and the place is
thickly wooded with western-wood acacia. Near sunset we crossed several
channels of the river. There was a change in the character of the country
when we left the northern bank; the ridges were sandy, caused, I judged,
by the junction of the Alice River, which I was afraid of following up in
mistake for the Barcoo River. We were not certainly, according to the
chart, so far to the northward as it; but Mr. Gregory discovered when he
went through the country that the north bend was laid down on the chart
too much to the northward. From where we crossed the watercourse we
steered south-east and, after crossing several dry watercourses, in about
two and a half miles reached one with water in it and encamped. In