They had evidently been out with pearlers at some time in their lives, but had returned to their native wilds many years before our visit.

I asked them if they knew where white men were to be found, and they pointed east (Cape York), and also indicated that the whites were many moons' journey away from us.

I was sorely puzzled.

A glance at a map of Australia will enable the reader to realise my great blunder.
Ignorant almost of Australian geography I fancied, on reaching the western shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, that I had struck the Coral Sea, and that all I had to do was to strike north to reach Somerset, the white settlement I had heard about from the pearlers.

I felt so confident Cape York lay immediately to the north, that I continued my course in that direction, paddling all day and running in-shore to camp at night.