It began
to rain heavily, and it was difficult to ford the swollen creeks
before arriving at the Big Hill. At Shady Creek there was nothing
for the horses to eat, and beyond it the ground became treacherous
and full of crabholes. At the Moe the backwater was found to be
fully a quarter of a mile wide, encumbered with dead logs and scrub,
and no safe place for crossing the creek could be found. During the
night the famishing horses tore open with their teeth the packages
containing the provisions, and before morning all that was left of
the flour, tea, and sugar was trodden into the muddy soil and
hopelessly lost; not an ounce of food could be collected. There was
no game to be seen; every bird and beast seemed to have fled from the
desolate ranges. Mr. Tyers had been for many years a naval
instructor on board a man-of-war, understood navigation and
surveying, and, it is to be presumed, knew the distance he had
travelled and the course to be followed in returning to Port Philip;
but there were valleys filled with impenetrable scrub, creeks often
too deep to ford, and boundless morasses, so that the journey was
made crooked with continual deviations. If a black boy like
McMillan's Friday had accompanied the expedition, his native instinct
would, at such a time, have been worth all the science in the world.
The seven men, breakfastless, turned their backs to Gippsland.
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