AN OVERLAND JOURNEY.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue 72, 2 February 1877, Page 2

AN OVER LAND JOURNEY.

A, Brisbane telegram, dated December 29, says :— " Four men have arrived overland from Port Essingdon, havine travelled for nearly tbree months. They did not see a white man on tbe whole journey. The distance travelled is estimated at a thou** sand miles. They describe the country passed through as being very mountainous and poor. Tbe best land was seen within fifty miles of the coast. They met with little water, and fonnd only a small quantity of food. The blacks were very troublesome, and attacked them several times. In one of the blacks camps they found the remains of a white hnman body partly eaten. They eventually struck the coast, along which they discovered a nnmber of wrecks. One vessel of four hundred tons had been broken np by the blacks, and tbe beach was strewn witb copper. They found a fresh water river thirty miles north of Cooktown, running through magnificent rich land suitable for sugar or coffee plantations. One of the four men is named Thompson. He says he was formerly the chief officer of a vessel, bnt he was decoyed from Mauritius to take charge of the Lacepede Islands for the sake of the gnnno, on behalf of the captain of the brig Alexan» dria, who, instead of going to Sonth Australia, went to Mauritius tf sell tho cargo. Thompson left the island in an open boat and went to Port Essington, tbe journey occupying two months and a half.