After Hume's return he lived for some time quietly on his farm, until the call of the wild drew him forth from his retirement to join Sturt in his first battle with the wilderness. His temporary association with that explorer will find its due place in the account of that expedition.* He died at Yass, near the scene of one of his early exploits.

*[Footnote.] See Charles Sturt. 6.2. The Darling.



CHAPTER 5. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.



5.1. COASTAL EXPEDITIONS.

Allan Cunningham, the great botanical explorer of Australia, was born at Wimbledon, near London, in 1791. He received a good education, his father intending him for the law; but he preferred gardening, and obtained a position under Mr. Aiton, at Kew. In 1814 he went to Brazil, where he made large collections of dried specimens, living plants, and seeds. Here he remained two years, collecting in the vicinity of Rio, the Organ Mountains, San Paolo, and other parts of Brazil. Sir Joseph Banks wrote that his collections, especially of orchids, bromeliads, and bulbs, "did credit to the expedition and honour to the Royal Gardens." He was nominated for service in New South Wales, and landed at Port Jackson on the 21st of December, 1816.* He first started collecting about the present suburb of Woolloomooloo in Sydney, which we may infer therefrom presented a very different appearance from that which it now presents. He next went with Oxley on his Lachlan expedition. On his return, he commenced the first of his five coastal voyages, in which he accompanied Captain P.P. King around most of the continent of Australia. In the tiny cutter the Mermaid, of 84 tons, they left Port Jackson on the 22nd of December, 1817, and sailed round the south coast of Australia to King George's Sound, the west coast, the north coast, and finally to Timor. The Mermaid returned by the same route and anchored in Port Jackson on the 24th of July, 1818. Again on the 24th of December, the Mermaid left Port Jackson on a short trip to Tasmania, from which they returned in February, 1819. Once more the busy little Mermaid sailed from Sydney on the 8th of May, 1819, to make a running survey of the east coast. On this voyage, many ports hitherto unvisited were examined by King, and amongst other places, Cunningham paid his first visit to the Endeavour River. Continuing the survey, she rounded Cape York, crossed the mouth of the Carpentaria Gulf, and kept along the north coast, where King found Cambridge Gulf. At Cassini Island, the Mermaid left for Timor, and eventually returned to Sydney round the west coast of Australia.

*[Footnote.] For the accompanying notes of Allan Cunningham's earlier lifework I am indebted to the Biographical Notes concerning Allan Cunningham, compiled by Mr. J.H. Maiden, Director of the Sydney Botanical Gardens.

On the 14th of June, 1820, the Mermaid was again busy with King and Cunningham on board, and, sailing up the east coast she re-visited the Endeavour River. During their stay, Cunningham ascended Mount Cook, where he made a fine collection of seeds and plants. She coasted north again and picked up the survey at Cassini Island once more. At Careening Bay, where they had occasion to stay for some time, Cunningham was again very fortunate in his collections. Returning homeward by way of the west and south coasts, the little cutter was almost wrecked off Botany Bay.

The Mermaid was now overhauled and condemned, and in her place H.M. Storeship Dromedary, re-christened the Bathurst, was placed under the command of Lieutenant King. This was Cunningham's fifth voyage as collector with the same commander — a very clear proof of their compatibility of tastes and temperament. As before, the Bathurst ran round the east coast and resumed her work on the north-west of Australia. While thus engaged she was found to be in a dangerous condition, and went to Port Louis to refit. They sailed from Mauritius on the 15th of November, and reached King George's Sound on the 24th of December. Here Cunningham found that the garden he had been at great pains to form during his visit in 1818 had disappeared altogether. The Bathurst stayed some weeks on the south-west coast, and then shaped a course to Port Jackson, where they arrived on the 25th of April, 1822. Of the botany of these coastal surveys Cunningham published a sketch entitled A Few General Remarks on the Vegetation of Certain Coasts of Terra Australis, and more especially of its North-Western Shore.

5.2. PANDORA'S PASS.

Let us now turn to his record as an inland explorer of Australia.

On the 31st of March, 1823, Allan Cunningham left Bathurst with two objects in view. One was his favourite pursuit of botany; and the other the discovery of an available route to Oxley's Liverpool Plains, through the range that bounded it on the south; a route which Lawson and Scott had vainly sought for the preceding year. On reaching the vicinity of the range, he searched in vain to the eastward for any opening that would enable him to pierce the barrier. He then retraced his steps, and, exploring more to the eastward, he came upon a pass through a low part of the mountain belt which he considered practicable and easy. The valley leading to the pass he named Hawkesbury Vale, and the pass itself Pandora's Pass, inasmuch as, in spite of the hardships the party had been put to, they had still hoped to find it. Here Cunningham left a parchment document, stating that the information thereon contained was for the first farmer "who may venture to advance as far to the northward as this vale." The finding of the bottle which contained this scroll has never been recorded. Bathurst was reached on their return journey, on June 27th.

In March, 1824, he botanised about the heads of the Murrumbidgee and the Monaro and Shoalhaven Gullies, and in September of the same year, went north by sea with Oxley to Moreton Bay, to investigate that locality and pronounce on its suitability as a settlement site. In March, 1825, he left Parramatta, threaded the Pandora Pass once more, and ascended to Liverpool Plains, returning to Parramatta on the 17th of June. In 1826 and the beginning of the following year, he visited New Zealand.

5.3. THE DARLING DOWNS.

It was in the year 1827 that Cunningham accomplished his most notable journey of exploration, one which eventually threw open to settlement an entirely new area of country; country destined to mould the destiny of the yet unborn colony of Queensland, and afford homes for thousands of settlers. It was mainly by his exertions that the young community at Moreton Bay was able to stretch its growing limbs to the westward immediately after its birth, instead of waiting long weary years and wasting its strength against an impassable obstacle as had been the fate of the settlement at Farm Cove.

Cunningham started from Segenhoe, a station on one of the head tributaries of the Hunter River, whence he ascended the main range without any difficulty beyond having to unload some of the pack-horses during the steepest part of the ascent. He had with him six men, eleven horses, and provisions for fourteen weeks. He left civilisation, or the outskirts of it, on the 2nd of May, and on the 11th he crossed the parallel on which Oxley had crossed the Peel River in 1818, and once beyond that point he was traversing unexplored country. The land was suffering under a prolonged drought in that district, and most of the streams encountered had but detached pools of water in their beds, at one of which, however, his party caught a good haul of cod, which were such ravenous biters and so heavy that several were lost in the attempt to land them.

Travelling through open forest land, which was suffering more or less from the want of rain, Cunningham came on the 19th of May to a valley. Here, on the bank of a creek he encamped on "the most luxuriant pasture we had met since we had left the Hunter."

"We were not a little surprised," he says, "to observe at this valley, so remote from any farming establishment, the traces of horned cattle, only two or three days old, as also the spots on which about eight to a dozen of these animals had reposed.

"From what point of the country these cattle had originally strayed appeared at first difficult to determine. On consideration, however, it was thought by no means impossible that they were stragglers from the large wild herds that are well-known to be occupying plains around Arbuthnot Range."

This speaks volumes for the wonderful increase and spread of wild cattle in those days; Arbuthnot Range, first sighted by Evans in 1817, being already an acknowledged resort of wild cattle in seven years. Or it advertises the negligence of the stockmen who guarded the comparatively tiny herds of the period.

The dry weather had put its mark upon the country. Though the degree of aridity was much less than that afterwards experienced in Australia by the explorers of its interior, nevertheless conditions were sufficiently dry to compel the leader to exercise great forethought, and Cunningham determined to pursue a more easterly course, keeping nearer the crest of the range, where he was more likely to find grass and water. The country he passed through was inferior, but on the 28th he came to the bank of a river "presenting a handsome reach, half-a-mile in length, thirty yards wide, and evidently very deep." This river he named the Dumaresque, and it led him to the northward, through what he considered poor land, until the new-found river took an easterly direction, when the party left it, still keeping north. At the end of the month, after passing through much scrubby country, they were agreeably surprised to meet with a stream, the banks of which presented an appearance of great verdure. "It was a subject of great astonishment to us to meet with so beautiful a sward of grass permanently watered by an active stream, after traversing that tract of desert forest, and penetrating brushes the extremes of sterility in its immediate vicinity."

This was named McIntyre's Brook, and Cunningham writes that they had some difficulty in fording it on account of its extreme rapidity. The party continued on, now in a north-easterly direction, passing again through dense thickets such as they had formerly met with.

On the 5th of June, Cunningham, from a small elevation, had a view of open country of decidedly favourable appearance: "A hollow in the forest ridge immediately before us allowed me distinctly to perceive that at a distance of eight or nine miles, open plains or downs of great extent appeared to extend easterly to the base of a lofty range of mountains, lying south and north, distant by estimation about thirty miles."

This was Cunningham's first glimpse of the now world-famous Darling Downs. On reaching the commencement of the great plains, they came to the "bank of a small river, about fifteen yards in breadth, having a brisk current to the North-West." As there was deep water in the pools of this river, the men anticipated some good fishing, and they were not disappointed. Cunningham named this river the Condamine.

Although their provisions were failing them, Cunningham remained for some time on the site of his new discovery, fully impressed with the certainty of its immense importance in the future settlement of Australia. Peel's Plains and Canning Downs were named by him, and to the north-west "beyond Peel's Plains an immeasurable extent of flat country met the eye, on which not the slightest eminence could be observed to interrupt the common level, which, in consequence of the very clear state of the atmosphere, could be discerned to a very distant blue line of horizon."

Cunningham's far-seeing mind fathomed the future requirements of such a vast agricultural and pastoral extent of country, and he at once turned his attention to its natural means of communication with its obvious port, Moreton Bay. A lofty range of mountains to the east and north-east seemed to offer a difficult barrier, and he determined upon making a closer inspection. As his horses were recruiting all the time on the luxuriant herbage, he did not so much regret their own scarcity of rations. Finding a beautiful grassy valley which he named Logan Vale, after Captain Logan, the well-known commandant of Moreton Bay, leading to the base of the principal range, he proceeded to make a nearer inspection. After much climbing of successive tiers or ridges, he gained the loftiest point of a main spur, and through some gaps in the main range itself, he was able to overlook portions of the country in the vicinity of Moreton Bay, and even to recognise the cone of Mount Warning. He took particular notice of one gap, and on closer inspection he came to the conclusion that a line of road could be constructed without much difficulty.

Having spent a week on the Downs, and his shortness of provisions and the weakness of his horses preventing any excursion to the western interior, as his intention had been, he set out on his homeward journey on the 18th of June. In order to render his chart of the country traversed as complete as possible, he kept a course about equidistant between the route of his outward journey and the coastal watershed. He reached Segenhoe on the 28th of July, bringing his men and horses back in safety, after one of the most successful and important expeditions on the east coast.



In the following year, accompanied by his old companion Fraser, who had been one of Oxley's party on his two inland expeditions, Cunningham proceeded by sea to Moreton Bay, with the intention of starting from the settlement, identifying the gap he had taken particular notice of, and connecting with his former camp on the Downs. In this attempt he was also accompanied by Captain Logan, but they were unsuccessful. Then Cunningham again went from the outpost of Limestone, with three men and two bullocks, and was completely satisfied. A road through this gap on to the Darling Downs was immediately constructed, and used until the introduction of railway communication: the opening was known far and wide as Cunningham's Gap.

In May, 1830, Cunningham went to Norfolk Island. While there he crossed to the little islet adjoining, known as Phillip Island. Having landed with three men, he sent the boat back. That night eleven convicts escaped, seized the boat, and were launching her when they were challenged by a sentry. One of them replied that they were going for Mr. Cunningham, and they got away though they were fired upon. They did go for Mr. Cunningham, and robbed him of his chronometer, pistols, tent, and provisions. Then they sailed away, and were picked up by a whaler, which they seized and finally scuttled. The Government refused to compensate Cunningham for his loss, and he had to replace the instruments himself.

Cunningham left Sydney on the 25th of February, 1831, on a visit to London, where he spent nearly two years at Kew, returning to Sydney on the 12th of February, 1837. He was appointed Colonial Botanist and Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens, but did not retain the position very long, being disgusted to find that supplying Government officials with vegetables was to be a chief part of his duties. He resigned, and after another visit to New Zealand, whence he returned in 1838, so ill was he that he was compelled to decline to accompany Captain Wickham on his survey of the north-west coast. He died of consumption on the 24th of January, 1839, at the cottage in the Botanic Gardens, whither he had been removed for change of air and scene. He was buried in the Devonshire Street cemetery, and on the 25th of May, 1901, his remains were removed to the obelisk in the Botanic Gardens.



CHAPTER 6. CHARLES STURT.

6.1. EARLY LIFE.

Charles Sturt was born in India at Chunar-Ghur, on April the 28th, 1795. His father, Thomas Lennox Napier Sturt, was a puisne Judge in Bengal under the East India Company; his mother was Jeanette Wilson. The Sturts were an old Dorsetshire family. In 1799, Charles, as was common with most Anglo-Indian children, was sent home to England, to the care of his aunts, Mrs. Wood and Miss Wilson, at Newton Hall, Middlewich. He went first to a private school at Astbury, and in 1810 was sent to Harrow. On the 9th of September, 1813, he was gazetted as Ensign in the 39th Regiment of Foot. He served with his regiment in the Pyrenees, and in a desultory campaign in Canada. When Napoleon escaped from Elba, the 39th returned to Europe, but all too late to join in the victory of Waterloo, and it was stationed with the Army of Occupation in the north of France. In 1818, the regiment was sent to Ireland. Here for several years Sturt remained in most uncongenial surroundings, watching smugglers, seizing illicit stills, and assisting to quell a rising of the Whiteboys. It was in Ireland that the devoted John Harris, his soldier-servant, who was afterwards the companion of his Australian wanderings, was first attached to him. In 1823, Sturt was gazetted Lieutenant, and his promotion to Captain followed in 1825.

In December, 1826, he sailed for New South Wales with a detachment of his regiment, in charge of convicts. The moment he set foot on this vast unknown land, its chief geographical enigma at once occupied his attention. Sir Ralph Darling, to whom he acted for some time as private secretary, formed a high opinion of his tact and ability, and appointed him Major of Brigade and Military Secretary.

6.2. THE DARLING.

As soon as an expedition inland was mooted, Sturt volunteered for the leadership, and was recommended by Oxley, who was then on his deathbed. The recommendation was adopted by Governor Darling, and Sturt embarked on the career of exploration that was to render his name immortal.

It was ever Sturt's misfortune to be the sport of the seasons; drought and its attendant desolation dogged his footsteps like an evil genius. Oxley had followed, or attempted to follow, the rivers down when a long period of recurrent wet seasons had saturated the soil, filled the swamps and marshes, and swollen the river-courses so that they appeared to be navigable throughout for boats. Sturt came at a period when the country lay faint under a prolonged drought and the rivers had dwindled down into dry channels, with here and there a parched and meagre water-hole. The following description of his is too often quoted as depicting the usual state of the Australian interior:—

"In the creeks, weeds had grown and withered, and grown again; and young saplings were now rising in their beds, nourished by the moisture that still remained; but the large forest trees were drooping, and many were dead. The emus with outstretched necks, gasping for breath, search the channels of the rivers for water in vain; and the native dog, so thin that he could hardly walk, seemed to implore some merciful hand to despatch him."

[Map. Sturt's Route. Hume and Hovell's Route 1824.]

To Sturt and his companions, who were the first white men to face the interior during a season of drought, the scene may not have seemed too highly-coloured; but, in common with many of Sturt's graphic word-pictures, his description applies only to special or rare circumstances.

In 1828, no rain had fallen for two years, and even the dwellers on the coastal lands began to despair of copious rainfalls. Whenever their glance wandered over their own dried-up pastures, men's thoughts naturally turned to that widespread and boundless swamp wherein the Macquarie was lost to Oxley's quest; and many saw in the drought a favourable opportunity to discover the ultimate destination of these lost rivers. An expedition to the west was accordingly prepared in order to solve the problem under these very different existing circumstances, and Sturt was selected as leader. To Hamilton Hume was offered the position of second in command, and, as the dry weather had brought all farming operations to a standstill, he was able to accept it. Besides Sturt and Hume, the party consisted of two soldiers and eight prisoners, two of the latter being taken to return with despatches as soon as they had reached the limit of the known country. They also had with them eight riding and seven pack-horses, and two draught and eight pack-bullocks. A small boat rigged up on a wheeled carriage was also taken; but like many others carried into the interior, it never served any useful purpose.

The country was by this time well-known, and partly settled up to and below Wellington Vale; but when Sturt reached Mount Harris, Oxley's former depot camp, he had come to the verge of the unknown, and halted in order to consider as to his immediate movements. He consulted with Hume, and as there seemed to be no present obstacle to their progress, it was determined, as Sturt writes, "to close with the marshes."

This they did much sooner than was expected, for at the end of the first day's march their camp was set in the very midst of the reeds. A halt for a couple of days was made, whilst Sturt prepared his despatches to the Governor. On the 26th, the two messengers were sent off to Bathurst, and the progress of the party was resumed. Before the day closed, they found themselves on a dreary expanse of flats and of desolate reed beds. The progress of the main body was thus suddenly and completely checked, and Sturt decided to launch the boat and with two men endeavour to trace the course of the river, while Hume and two others endeavoured to find an opening to the northward.

The boat voyage soon terminated, for Sturt was as completely baffled as Oxley had been. The channel ceased altogether, and the boat quietly grounded. Sturt could do nothing but return to camp and await Hume's report. All search for the lost river proved vain.

Hume had found a serpentine sheet of water to the north which he was inclined to think was the continuation of the elusive Macquarie. He had pushed on past it, but had been checked by another body of reed beds. It was decided to shift camp to this lagoon and launch the boat once more; but without result, for the boat was hauled ashore again after having vainly followed the supposed channel in amongst reeds and shallows. Again the leader and his second went forward on a scouting trip. Each took with them two men; Sturt going to the north-west, and Hume to the north-east. They left on the last day of December, 1828.

Sturt toiled on until after sunset he came to a northward-flowing creek, in which there was a fair supply of water. Next day their course lay through plains intersected with belts of scrub, and they discovered another creek, inferior to the last one both in size and the quality of the water. They camped for a few hours on its bank, and Sturt called it New Year's Creek, but it is now known as the Bogan River. They were about to pass that night without water on the edge of a dry plain, when one of the men had his attention drawn to the flight of a pigeon, and searching, found a puddle of rain water which barely satisfied them. An isolated hill with perpendicular sides, which Sturt had noticed for some time, now attracted his attention, as being a lofty point of vantage from which to get an extensive view to the west. They accordingly made for it, over more promising country. They reached the hill which Sturt called Oxley's Tableland, but from its summit he saw nothing but a stretch of monotonous plain, with no sign of the long-sought river. That night they camped at a small swamp, and the next morning turned back, Sturt agreeing with Oxley, but without as much reason, that "the space I traversed is unlikely to become the haunt of civilised man." Hume did not return until the day after Sturt's arrival. He reported that the Castlereagh River must have suddenly turned to the north below where Oxley crossed it, for he had been unable to find it. He had gone westward, but had seen nothing except far-stretching plains. After a few aimless and unprofitable ramblings, they made their way again to Oxley's Tableland, and Sturt and Hume, with two men, made a journey to the west, with only a negative result. On the 31st of January they commenced to follow down Sturt's New Year's Creek, and the next day, to their unbounded surprise, came upon the bank of a noble river. From its size and width they judged they had struck it at a point as far from its source as from its termination; but when the men rushed tumultuously down the bank to revel in the water and quench their thirst, they cried out, with disgust and surprise, that the water was salt.

Poor Sturt, whose heart was bounding with joy at the realisation of his fondest hopes in this important discovery of a river which seemed to answer all men's dreams and anticipations, felt the sudden revulsion of despair. One saving thought he had, and that was that they were close to its junction with the inland sea. Meantime, although human tracks were to be seen everywhere, they saw none of the aborigines. Hume at length found a pool of fresh water, which provided them with water for themselves and their stock.



The long-continued absence of rain having lowered the fresh water so that the supply from the brine springs on the banks predominated, was the explanation of the saltness of the water; but Sturt did not know this, and for six days the party moved slowly down the river until the discovery of saline springs in the bank convinced the leader that the saltness was of local origin. Still that did not supply them with the necessary drinking water, and on the sixth day, leaving the men encamped at a small supply of fresh water, Sturt and Hume pushed on to look for more, but in vain, and Sturt was compelled to order a retreat to Mount Harris.

This shows how the exploration of the continent has ever been conditioned by the uncertainty of the seasons. Had Sturt found the Darling in a normal season, he would probably have followed it down to its junction with the Murray, and the geographical system of the east would have been at once laid bare. But it was not in such a simple manner that the great river basin was to become known. Toil, privation, and the sacrifice of human lives, had first to be suffered.

To the river which he had found Sturt gave the name Darling, in honour of the Governor.

The return journey to Mount Harris continued without interruption. At Mount Harris they expected to find fresh supplies; but as they approached the place they could not restrain fears with regard to their safety. The surrounding reed beds were in flames in all parts. The few natives that were met with displayed a guilty timidity, and one was observed wearing a jacket. Fortunately, however, their fears were groundless; the relief party had arrived and had been awaiting their return for about three weeks. An attack by the natives had been made, but it had been easily repulsed. While Sturt rested at Mount Harris, Hume struck off to the west, beyond the reeds. He reported the country as superior for thirty miles to any they had yet seen, but beyond that limit lay brushwood and monotonous plains.

On the 7th of March the party struck camp and departed for the Castlereagh River. They found that the flooded stream, impassable by Oxley, had totally disappeared. Not a drop of water lay in the bed of the river. They commenced to follow its course down, and the old harassing hunt for water had to be conducted anew. No wonder that Sturt could never free himself from the memory of his fiery baptism as Australian explorer, and that his mental picture of the country was ever shrouded in the haze of drought and heat.

As they descended the Castlereagh into the level lower country, they were greatly delayed by the many intricate windings of the river and its multiplicity of channels. On the 29th of March they again reached the Darling, ninety miles above the place where they had first come upon it, and they observed the same characteristics as before, including the saltness. This was a blow to Sturt, who had hoped to find it free from salinity. Fortunately they were not distressed for fresh water at the time, and knowing what to expect if the river was followed down again, the party halted and formed a camp.

The next day Sturt, Hume, and two men crossed the river and made a short journey of investigation to the west, to see what fortune held for them further afield. Not having passed during the day "a drop of water or a blade of grass," they found themselves by mid-afternoon on a wide plain that stretched far away to the horizon. Sturt writes that had there been the slightest encouragement afforded by any change in the country, he would even then have pushed forward, "but we had left all traces of the natives behind us, and this seemed a desert they never entered — that not even a bird inhabited."

Back to Mount Harris once more, where they arrived on the 7th of April, 1829. On their way they had stopped to follow a depression first noticed by Hume, and decided that it was the channel of the overflow of the Macquarie Marshes.

6.3. THE PASSAGE OF THE MURRAY.

The mystery of the Macquarie was now, to a certain extent, cleared away, but the course and final outlet of the Darling now presented another riddle, which Sturt too was destined to solve.

The discovery of such a large river as the Darling, augmented by the Macquarie and Castlereagh, and (so people then thought) in all probability the Lachlan, naturally inflamed public curiosity as to the position of the outlet on the Australian coast. All the rivers that had been tried as guides to the hidden interior having failed to answer the purpose, the Murrumbidgee — the beautiful river of the aboriginals — was selected as the scene of the next attempt. There were good reasons for the choice: it derived its volume from the highest known mountains, snow-capped peaks in fact, that reminded the spectator of far northern latitudes, and thus it was to a great extent independent of the variable local rainfall.

Captain Sturt was naturally selected to be the leader of the Murrumbidgee expedition, and with him as second went George MacLeay, the son of the then Colonial Secretary. Harris, who had been Sturt's soldier-servant for nearly eighteen years, and two other men of the 39th, who had been with their Captain on the Macquarie expedition, also accompanied him, with a very complete and well-furnished party, including the usual boat rigged up on a carriage. This time, however, unlike the craft that had accompanied previous exploring parties, the whaleboat was destined to be immortalised in Australian history.

Settlement had by this time extended well up to and down the banks of the Murrumbidgee, and Sturt took his departure from the borders of civilisation about where the town of Gundagai now stands, almost at the junction of the Tumut River, at Whaby's station. The course for some time lay along the rich river-flats of the Murrumbidgee. The blacks, who of course from their position were familiar with the presence of white men, maintained a friendly demeanour. One slight excursion to the north was made to connect with Oxley's furthest south, made when on his Lachlan expedition; but though they did not actually verify the spot, Sturt reckoned that he went within twenty miles of it, showing how narrowly that explorer had missed the discovery of the Murrumbidgee.

As they got lower down the river they found themselves travelling through the flat desolate country that reminded them only too forcibly of late experiences on the Macquarie. Owing to some information gleaned from the natives, Sturt and MacLeay rode north to try and again come upon the Lachlan. They struck a dry channel, which Sturt believed was the drainage from the Lachlan into the Murrumbidgee. This proved to be correct, as natives afterwards testified that they had seen the two white men actually on the Lachlan.

On the 25th, which was an intensely hot day, MacLeay, who was on ahead, found himself suddenly confronted with a boundless sea of reeds, and the river itself had suddenly vanished. He sent a mounted messenger back to Sturt with these disastrous tidings. Sturt thereupon turned the drays, which were already in difficulties in the loose soil, sharp round to the right, and finally came to the river again, where they camped to discuss the untoward circumstance.

At daylight the next morning, Sturt and MacLeay rode along its bank, whilst Clayton, the carpenter, was set to work felling a tree and digging a sawpit. Progress along the bank with the whole party was evidently impossible. Sturt, however, had faith in the continuity of the river, and announced to MacLeay his intention to send back most of the expedition, and with a picked crew to embark in the whaleboat, committing their desperate fortunes to the stream, and trusting to make the coast somewhere, and leaving their return in the hands of Providence.

The more one regards this heroic venture, the more sublime does it appear. The whole of the interior was then a sealed book, and the river, for aught Sturt knew, might flow throughout the length of the continent. But the voyage was commenced with cool and calm confidence.

In a week the whaleboat was put together, and a small skiff also built. Six hands were selected for the crew, and the remainder, after waiting one week in case of accident, were to return to Goulburn Plains and there await events. It would be as well to embody here the names of this band. John Harris, Hopkinson, and Fraser were the soldiers chosen, and Clayton, Mulholland, and Macmanee the prisoners. The start was made at seven on the morning of January 7th, the whale-boat towing the small skiff. Within about fifteen miles of the point of embarkation they passed the junction of the Lachlan, and that night camped amongst a thicket of reeds. The next day the skiff fouled a log and sank, and though it was raised to the surface and most of the contents recovered, the bulk of them was much damaged. Fallen and sunken logs greatly endangered their progress, but on the 14th they "were hurried into a broad and noble river." Such was the force with which they were shot out of the Murrumbidgee that they were carried nearly to the opposite bank of the new and ample stream. Sturt's feelings at that moment were to be envied, and for once in a life chequered with much disappointment he must have felt that a great reward was granted to him in this crowning discovery. He named the new river the Murray, after Sir George Murray, the head of the Colonial Department. As some controversy has of late arisen as to the question of Sturt's right to confer the name, we here quote his own words, written after surveying the Hume in 1838.

"When I named the Murray I was in a great measure ignorant of the other rivers with which it is connected...I want not to usurp an inch of ground or of water over which I have not passed."

On the bosom of the Murray they could now make use of their sail, which the contracted space in the bed of the Murrumbidgee had before prevented them from doing. The aborigines were seen nearly every day, and once when the voyagers had to negotiate a very ticklish rapid, some of them approached quite close, and seemed to take great interest in the proceedings.

Sturt's thoughts now turned towards the junction of the Darling, and at last he sighted a deserted camp on which the huts resembled those he had seen on that river. On the 23rd of January they came upon the junction at a very critical moment. A line of magnificently-foliaged trees came into view, among which was perceived a large gathering of blacks, who apparently were inclined to be hostile. Sturt, who was at the helm, was steering straight for them and made the customary signs of peace. Just before it was too late to avoid a collision, Sturt marked hostility in their quivering limbs and battle-lusting eyes. He instantly put the helm a-starboard, and the boat sheered down the reach, the baffled natives running and yelling defiantly along the bank. The river, however, was shoaling rapidly, and from the opposite side there projected a sand-spit; on each side of this narrow passage infuriated blacks had gathered, and there was no mistaking their intentions. Sturt gave orders to his men as to their behaviour, and held himself ready to give the battle-signal by shooting the most active and forward of their adversaries.

Mention has been made of a small party of blacks who had been interested in the shooting of a rapid by the boat's crew. Four of these savages had camped with the explorers the preceding night, leaving at daylight in the morning. Sturt imagined that they had gone ahead as peace delegates, and he was thus most anxious to avoid a fight. But the life of the whole party depended on prompt action being taken, and Sturt's eye was on the leader and his finger on the trigger when "my purpose," he says "was checked by MacLeay, who called to me that another party of blacks had made their appearance on the left bank of the river. Turning round, I observed four men at the top of their speed." These were the dusky delegates, and the description given by Sturt of the conduct of the man who saved the situation is very graphic:—



"The foremost of them, as soon as he got ahead of the boat, threw himself from a considerable height into the water. He struggled across the channel to the sand-bank, and in an incredibly short space of time stood in front of the savage against whom my aim had been directed. Seizing him by the throat, he pushed him backwards, and forcing all who were in the water on the bank, he trod its margin with a vehemence and an agitation that was exceedingly striking. At one moment pointing to the boat, at another shaking his clenched hand in the faces of the most forward, and stamping with passion on the sand, his voice, that was at first distinct, was lost in hoarse murmurs."

This episode, unequalled in the traditions of the Australian aborigines, removed the imminent danger; and Sturt's tact, in a few moments changed the hundreds of demented demons into a pack of laughing, curious children, an easy and common transition with the savage nature. But for the intervention of this noble chief, Sturt and his followers, penned within the boat in shallow water, would have been massacred without a chance to defend themselves. Surrounded as they were by six hundred stalwart foes, their fate, save from unreliable native tradition, would never have been known to their countrymen.

During the crisis, the boat had drifted untended, and grounded on the sand. While the men were hastily pushing her off, they caught sight of "a new and beautiful stream coming apparently from the north." A crowd of natives were assembled on the bank of the new river, and Sturt pulled across to them, thus creating a diversion amongst his erstwhile foes, who swam after, as he says, "like a parcel of seals."

After presenting the friendly native with some acknowledgement and refusing presents to the others, the pioneers examined the new river. The banks were sloping and well-grassed, crowned with fine trees, and the men cried out that they had got on to an English river. To Sturt himself the moment was supreme. He was convinced "that we were now sailing on the bosom of that very stream from whose banks I had been twice forced to retire." They did not pull far up the stream, for a native fishing-net was stretched across, and Sturt forbore to break it. The Union Jack was, however, run up to the peak and saluted with three cheers, and then with a favouring wind they bade farewell to the Darling and the now wonderstruck natives.

As they went on, the party landed occasionally to inspect the surrounding country, but on all sides from their low elevation they could see nothing but a boundless flat. The skiff being now only a drag upon them, it was broken up and burnt for the sake of the ironwork. On account of the damage to the salt pork caused by the sinking of this boat, the strictest economy of diet had to be exercised, and though an abundance of fish was caught, they had become unattractive to their palates. The continuation of the voyage down the course of the Murray was henceforth a monotonous repetition of severe daily toil at the oar. The natives whom they encountered, though friendly, became a nuisance from the constant handling and embracing that the voyagers had, from purposes of policy, to suffer unchecked. The tribes met with were more than ordinarily filthy, and were disfigured by loathsome skin diseases. After twenty-one days on the water, Sturt began to look most anxiously for indications of the sea, for his men were fagging with the unremitting labour and short rations, and they had only the strength of their own arms to rely on for their return against the current. Soon, however, an old man amongst the natives described the roaring of the waves, and showed by other signs that he had been to the sea coast. But more welcome than all were some flocks of sea-gulls that flew over and welcomed the tired men.

On the thirty-third day after leaving the starting-point on the Murrumbidgee, Sturt, on landing to inspect the country, saw before him the lake which was indeed the termination of the Murray, but not the end that he had dreamt of. "For the lake was evidently so little influenced by tides that I saw at once our probable disappointment of practical communication between it and the ocean."

This foreboding was realised after examination of Lake Alexandrina, as it is now called. Upon ascertaining their exact position on the southern coast, nothing was left but to take up the weary labours of their return; the thunder of the surf brought no hopeful message of succour, but rather warned the lonely men to hasten back while yet some strength remained to them.

Sturt re-entered the Murray on his homeward journey on the 13th of February; and the successful accomplishment of this return is Sturt's greatest achievement. His crew were indeed picked men, but what other Australian leader of exploration could have inspired them with such a deep sense of devotion as to carry them through their herculean task without one word of insubordination or reproach. "I must tell the Captain to-morrow that I can pull no more," was the utmost that Sturt heard once, when they thought him asleep; but when the morrow came the speaker stubbornly pulled on.

Three of these men, it must be remembered, were convicts; yet, despite their heroic conduct, one only (Clayton) received a free pardon on their return, though Sturt did his utmost to win fuller recognition of their merits.

In such a work of generalisation as this, space will not permit of a detailed account of the return voyage, but on the 20th of March they reached the camp on the Murrumbidgee from which they had started. The relief party were not there, and there was nothing left but to toil on, though the men were falling asleep at the oars, and the river itself rose and raged madly against them. When they reached a point within ninety miles of the depot where Sturt expected the relief party to be, they landed, and two men — Hopkinson and Mulholland — went forward on foot for succour. They were now almost utterly without food, and had to wait six dragging days before men arrived with drays and stores to their aid.

One little item let me add; the boat being no longer serviceable, was burnt, Sturt giving as a reason that he was reluctant to leave her like a log on the water. What a priceless relic that boat would now have become!

Sturt received but scant appreciation on his return from this heroic journey. His eyesight was impaired and his health was failing; but instead of obtaining much-needed rest, he was sent to Norfolk Island, with a detachment of his regiment. There the moist climate still further prejudiced his health, though he was able to quell a mutiny of the convicts, and to save Norfolk Island from falling into their hands. Governor Darling too proposed that Sturt should be sent as British Resident to New Zealand, but filled with the love of continental exploration, he would not leave Australia, to the satisfaction of the fossils of the Colonial Office, who did not know of him, and promptly appointed Busby. Even Sir G. Murray, after whom the river had been named, had never heard of the river.

In 1832 or a little later, the temporary loss of the sight of one eye forced him to go to England on leave, when he also bade adieu to his regiment, which was ordered to India.

While in England, he published the first of his maps and books, but his eyesight totally failing him, he retired from the army, July, 1833. Sturt's eyesight, although never the same as before, was gradually restored to him, and on September the 21st, 1834, he was married at Dover to Charlotte Greene.

We must now take leave of this distinguished man, until he reappears in these pages as an explorer of Central Australia.*

*[Footnote.] See Chapter 12.



CHAPTER 7. SIR THOMAS MITCHELL.



7.1. INTRODUCTORY.

Mitchell, whose name both as explorer and Surveyor-General looms large in our history, was born at Craigend, Stirlingshire, in 1792. He was the son of John Mitchell of Grangemouth, and his mother was a daughter of Alexander Milne of Carron Works. When he was but sixteen, young Mitchell joined the army of the Peninsula as a volunteer. Three years later he received a commission in the 95th Regiment or Rifle Brigade. He was employed on the Quartermaster General's staff at military sketching; and he was present in the field at Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, the Pyrenees, and St. Sebastian. After the close of the war he went to Spain and Portugal to survey the battlefields. He received promotion to a Lieutenancy in 1813. He served in the 2nd, 54th, and 97th Regiments of foot, and was promoted to be Captain in 1822, and Major in 1826. His appointment as Surveyor-General of New South Wales, as successor to John Oxley, took place in 1827, when he at once assumed office, and started energetically to lay out and construct roads, then the urgent need of the new colony.

His strong personality, and the energy and thoroughness he displayed in all his undertakings, combined with his many gifts as draughtsman, surveyor and organizer, proved to be of peculiar service to the colony at that period of its existence. There was a vast unknown country surrounding the settled parts, awaiting both discovery and development, and Mitchell's inclinations and talents being strongly directed towards geographical discovery, the office of Surveyor-General that he held for so long was the most appropriate and advantageous appointment that could have been given him in the interests of the colony.

At the same time, Major Mitchell had faults which have always detracted from the estimation in which he would otherwise be held for his undoubted capabilities. His domineering temper led him into acts of injustice, and often made it impossible for him to allow the judgments of others to influence his opinions. In his view, no other explorer but himself ever achieved anything worthy of commendation or propounded any credible theory regarding the interior of Australia. He always referred slightingly to Sturt, Cunningham, and Leichhardt, and his perversity on the subject of the junction of the Darling and the Murray drew even from the gentle Sturt a richly-deserved and unanswerable retort. On his second expedition, which was supposed to establish the identity of the Darling with the junction seen by Sturt, Mitchell excused himself from further exploration of the lower Darling as he expressed himself satisfied that Sturt's supposition was justified. But later, when on his expedition to what is now the State of Victoria, he again fell into a doubting mood, and he was not finally convinced until he had re-visited the junction. This constant doubting at last roused Sturt, who speaking in 1848 of Mitchell's work, said: "In due time he came to the disputed junction which he tells us he recognised from its resemblance to a drawing of it in my first work. As I have since been on the spot, I am sorry to say that it is not at all like the place, because it obliges me to reject the only praise Sir Thomas Mitchell ever gave me."

Sturt's original sketch of the junction had been lost, and Sturt, who was nearly blind at the time of publication, obtained the assistance of a friend, who drew it from his verbal description.

7.2. THE UPPER DARLING.

Rumours of a mysterious river called the Kindur, which was said, on no better authority than a runaway convict's, to pursue a north-west course through Australia, now began to be noised about. This convict, whose name was Clarke, but who was generally known as the Barber, said that he had taken to the bush in the neighbourhood of the Liverpool Plains, and had followed down a river which the natives called the Gnamoi. He crossed it and came next to the Kindur. This he followed down for four hundred miles before he came upon the junction of the two. The union of the two formed a broad navigable river, which he still followed, although he had lost his reckoning, and did not know whether he had travelled five hundred or five thousand miles. One thing, however, he was convinced of, and that was that he had never travelled south of west. He asserted that he had a good view of the sea, from the mouth of this most desirable river, and had seen a large island from which, so the natives reported, there came copper-coloured men in large canoes to take away scented wood. The Kindur ran through immense plains, and past a burning mountain. As no one had invited him to stay in this delectable country, he had returned.

The story, which bore every evidence of having been invented to save his back, received a certain amount of credence, and Sir Patrick Lindesay, then Acting-Governor, gave the Surveyor-General instructions to investigate the truth of it. It was in this way that Mitchell's first expedition originated.

On the 21st of November, 1831, Mitchell left Liverpool Plains and reached the Namoi on the 16th December. He crossed it and penetrated some distance into a range which he named the Nundawar Range. He then turned back to the Namoi, and set up some canvas boats which he had brought to assist him in following the river down. The boats were of no use for the purpose, one of them getting snagged immediately, and it was clear that it would be easier to follow the river on land. As the range was not easy of ascent, he worked his way round the end of it and came on to the lower course of Cunningham's Gwydir, which he followed down for eighty miles. At this point he turned north and suddenly came to the largest river he had yet seen. Mitchell, ever on the alert to bestow native names on geographical features — a most praiseworthy trait in his character, and through the absence of which in most other explorers, Australian nomenclature lacks distinction and often euphony — enquired of the name from the natives, and found it to be called the Karaula. Was this, or was this not the nebulous Kindur? The answer could be supplied only by tracing its course; but its general direction and the discovery and recognition of its junction with the Gwydir showed that the Karaula was but the upper flow of Sturt's Darling. Much disappointed, for Mitchell was intent upon the discovery of a new river system having a northerly outflow, he prepared to make a bold push into the interior. Before he started, Finch, his assistant-surveyor arrived hurriedly on the scene with a tale of death. Finch had been bringing up supplies, and during his temporary absence his camp had been attacked by the natives, the cattle dispersed, the supplies carried off, and two of the teamsters murdered. All ideas of further penetration into the new country had to be abandoned. Mitchell was compelled to hasten back, bury the bodies of the victims, and after an ineffective quest for the murderers, return to the settled districts.

The journey, however, had not been without good results. Knowledge of the Darling had been considerably extended, and it was now shown to be the stream receiving the outflow of the rivers whose higher courses Cunningham had discovered. The beginning of the great river system of the Darling may be said to have been thus placed among proven data. Mitchell himself afterwards showed himself an untiring and zealous worker in solving the identity of the many ramifications of this system.

7.3. THE PASSAGE OF THE DARLING.

His next journey was undertaken to confirm the fact of the union of the Darling and the Murray. Sturt himself was fully convinced that he had seen the junction of the two rivers when on his long boat voyage; but he had not converted every one, and Mitchell, with a large party was despatched to settle the question and make a systematic survey. Early in March, 1833, the expedition left Parramatta to proceed by easy stages to the head of the Bogan River, which had been partly traversed the year before by surveyor Dixon. It was during this expedition that Richard Cunningham, brother of Allan, was murdered by the natives. He had not been long in Australia, and had been appointed botanist to the expedition. On the morning of April 17th, he lost sight of the party, whilst pursuing some scientific quest, and as the main body were then pushing hurriedly over a dry stage to the Bogan River, he was not immediately missed. Not having any bush experience, he lost himself, and was never seen again. A long and painful search followed, but owing to some mischance, Cunningham's tracks were lost on the third day, and it was not until the 23rd of the month that they were again found. Larmer, the assistant-surveyor, and three men were sent to follow them up until they found the lost man. Three days later they returned, having come across only the horse he had ridden, dead, with the saddle and bridle still on. Mitchell personally conducted the further search. Cunningham's tracks were again picked up, and his wandering and erratic footsteps traced to the Bogan, where some blacks stated that they had seen the white man's tracks in the bed of the river, and that he had gone west with the Myalls, or wild blacks.*

*[Footnote.] Lieutenant Zouch, of the Mounted Police, subsequently found the site of his death, and recovered a few bones, a Manilla hat, and portions of a coat. The account afterwards given by the natives was to the effect that the white man came to them and they gave him food, and he camped with them: but that during the night he repeatedly got up, and this roused their fears and suspicions, so that they determined to destroy him. One struck him on the back of the head with a nulla-nulla, when the others rushed in and finished the deadly work.



As is often the case with men lost in the bush, the unfortunate botanist, by wandering on confusing and contradictory courses, had rendered the work of the search party more tedious and difficult, thus sealing his own fate. A rude stone memorial has since been erected on the spot, and a tablet put up in the St. Andrew's Scots Church, Sydney. The death of Cunningham, who was a young and ardent man with the promise of a brilliant future caused Mitchell much distress of mind. He did all he could to find his lost comrade, and jeopardised the success of the expedition by the long delay of fourteen days.

He resumed his journey by easy stages down the Bogan, and on the 25th of May came to the Darling. This river was at once recognised by all who had been with him on his former trip as identical with the Karaula as Mitchell had supposed; but he found the country in a different condition from that presented by it when Sturt and Hume first discovered the river at nearly the same place. The water was now fresh and sweet to drink, and the flats and banks luxuriant with grass and herbage.

After choosing a site for a camp, where the town of Bourke now stands, Mitchell erected a stockade of logs, which he named Fort Bourke, after the Governor. The country on either side of the Darling was now alive with natives, and though a sort of armed truce was kept up, it was at the cost of constant care and watchfulness, and the tactful submission to numerous annoyances, including much petty pilfering. The boats proved to be of no service, and after Mitchell with a small party had made a short excursion down the river to the farthest limit of Sturt and Hume in 1829, where he saw the tree then marked by Hume, H.H., he had the camp dismantled, and started with the whole party to follow the river down to its junction with the Murray.

By the 11th of July, one month after leaving Fort Bourke, they had traced the river for three hundred miles through a country of level monotony unbroken by any tributary rivers or creeks of the least importance. Mitchell was now certain from the steadfast direction the river maintained, and the short distance that now intervened between the lowest point they had reached and Sturt's junction, that Sturt had really been correct in his surmise, and that he had witnessed the meeting of the rivers on that memorable occasion. He therefore decided that to keep on was but needlessly endangering the lives of his men. He was constantly kept in a state of anxiety for the safety of any member of the party whose duty compelled him to separate from the main body, for the natives, who had become doubly bold through familiarity, were now persistently encroaching and rapidly assuming a defiant manner.

On the very day that Mitchell had made up his mind to retreat, the long threatened rupture took place. Mitchell refers to the blacks of this region as the most unfavourable specimens of aborigine that he had yet seen, barbarously and implacably hostile, and shamelessly dishonest. On the morning of July 11th, two of the men were engaged at the river, and five of the bullock-drivers were collecting their cattle. One of the natives, nick-named King Peter by the men, tried to snatch a kettle from the hand of the man who was carrying it, and on this action being resented, he struck the man with a nulla-nulla, stretching him senseless. His companion shot King Peter in the groin, and his majesty tumbled into the river and swam across. The swarm of natives who were constantly loitering around the camp gathered together and advanced in an armed crowd, threatening the men, who fired two shots in self-defence, one of which accidentally wounded a woman. Alarmed by the shots, three men from the camp came to the assistance of their mates, and one native was shot just when he was about to spear a man. The blacks now drew back a little, and the men seized the opportunity to warn the bullock-drivers, whom they found occupied in lifting a bullock that had fallen into a bog. Their arrival probably saved their lives, as the bullock drivers were unarmed. No further attack took place, but the strictest watch had to be kept until the party was ready to begin the return journey or to beat a retreat as the natives regarded it. They reached Fort Bourke without further molestation, the aborigines being content with having driven away the whites, who retraced their steps from Fort Bourke to Bathurst.

The geographical knowledge gained on this journey consisted mainly in the confirmation of tentative theories — the identity of the Karaula with the Darling, and the uninterrupted course of the latter river southwards, as Major Mitchell himself had to confess, into the Murray. Furthermore it seemed now satisfactorily settled that all the inland rivers as yet discovered found the same common embouchure. Mitchell's experience too proved that the pastoral country through which the Darling ran was by no means unfit for habitation, nor was the river a salt one; true some of his men had noticed that the water was brackish in places, but this brackishness, it was seen, had a purely local origin.

Mitchell was a keen observer of the habits and customs of the aborigines. He was remarkably quick at detecting tribal differences and distinctions, and his records of his intercourse with them — which occupies so much of his journals — were most interesting then, when little had been written on the subject; and are even more valuable now, as a first-hand account by an intelligent man and a practised observer of the appearance of the natives at the time of earliest contact with the white man.

7.4. AUSTRALIA FELIX.

One would have thought that the fact of the union of the Darling and the Murray was now sufficiently well-established; but the official mind deemed otherwise. When the Surveyor-General's next expedition started in March, 1836, he was informed that the survey of the Darling was to be completed without any delay; that, having returned to the point where his last journey had come to an end, he was to trace the river right into the Murray — see the waters of the two mingle in fact — then to cross over the Murray and follow up the southern bank, recrossing, and regaining the settled districts at Yass Plains. Although the primary object of the expedition was the verification of previous discoveries, the programme was largely departed from, and this particular journey of Mitchell's led to the opening up and speedy settlement of what is now the State of Victoria.

A drought, long-continued and severe, was in full force when Mitchell commenced his preparations for departure; consequently bullocks and horses in suitable condition were hard to obtain. But as the Government spared no expense, the necessary animals were at last available. Though upon reaching Bathurst Mitchell was informed that the Lachlan River was dry, he started on his third exploring expedition in the best of spirits. His mind overflowed with old memories and associations, and he wrote in his journal that this was the anniversary of the day "when he marched down the glacis of St. Elvas to the tune of St. Patrick's Day in the Morning, as the sun rose over the beleaguered towers of Badajoz." He had heard that the aborigines of the lower Murray had been informed of his approach, and that they had assured the other tribes that they were gathering murry coolah — very angry — to meet him, but this to one of the Major's temper, lent but an added zest to the journey; for there were old scores to settle on both sides. It was the 17th of March, 1836, before he got free of the cattle stations and found himself at the point where Oxley had finally left the river. He noticed that throughout this route, in spite of the dry weather, the cattle were all in good condition; and he found Oxley's swamps and marshes transmuted into grassy flats. In fact, so changed was the face of the land, that even the landmarks of that explorer could scarcely be recognised.

Again his mind began to be troubled with doubts as to whether he had not acknowledged the veracity of Sturt's judgment too hastily, for we find in his journal that he again wavered, after professing that the identity admitted of little doubt. Now, on the Lachlan, he reverted to his old idea that the Darling drained a separate and independent basin of its own. He wrote:—

"I considered it necessary to ascertain, if possible, and before the heavy part of our equipage moved further forward, whether the Lachlan actually joined the Murrumbidgee near the point where Mr. Oxley saw its waters covering the face of the country, or whether it pursued a course so much more to the westward as to have been mistaken for the Darling by Captain Sturt."

Impelled by this doubt he undertook a long excursion to the westward with no result but the discomfort of several thirsty nights and an unchanging outlook across a level expanse of country bounded by an unbroken horizon. He reached Oxley's furthest on the 5th of May, but did not find that explorer's marked tree, though he found others marked by Oxley's party with the date 1817.

On the 12th of May, he halted on the bank of the Murrumbidgee, which in his opinion surpassed all the other Australian rivers he had yet seen. As his orders were simply to clear up the last hazy doubts that wrapped the Murray and Darling junction, and then to visit the southern bank of the Murray, he did not take his heavy baggage on to the Darling, but formed a stationary camp on the Murrumbidgee, and thence went on with a small party. When they came to the Murray, they found their old enemies awatch for them. It was afterwards ascertained that many of these aborigines had travelled as far as two hundred miles to assist in chasing back the white intruders once more from their violated hunting-grounds. But these braves of the Darling did not yet understand the nature of the man they sought to intimidate.

At first a nominal peace prevailed, and for two days the blacks followed the expedition closely, seeking to cut off any stragglers, and rendered the out-roving work of minding and collecting the cattle and horses one of considerable risk. Mitchell was soon convinced that a sharp lesson was necessary to save his men. In the event of losing any of his party, he would have had to fight his way back with the warriors of what seemed a thickly-populated district arrayed against him. One morning, therefore, the party was divided, and half of them sent back to an ambush in the scrub. The natives were allowed to pass on in close pursuit of the advance party. The native dogs, however, scented this ambuscade, and, after their fashion, warned the blacks of the presence of the hidden whites. As they halted, and began handling and poising their spears, one of the ambushed men fired without orders, and the others followed his example. The natives faltered, and those in advance, hearing the firing, rushed back eager to join in the fray. The conflict was short and decisive; the over-confident fighting men of the Darling lost seven of their number and were driven ignominiously back into the Murray scrub and across that river. Henceforth the explorers were unmolested. These pugnacious aboriginals were the same that had threatened to bring Sturt's boat voyage to a tragical conclusion, and soon after Mitchell's exploration, they waged a determined war against the early overlanders and their stock.

Mitchell's way to the Darling was now clear, and on the 31st of May he came upon that river, a short distance above the confluence. Tracing the stream upwards, he again convinced himself that it was the same river that he had been on before, and, satisfied of this, he turned and proceeded right down to the junction itself, and finally disposed of one of the most interesting problems in Australian exploration.

He naturally felt much anxiety, after his late skirmish, for the safety of the stationary camp he had left behind, and having lost no time during his return, he was relieved to find his camp in quiet and safety.

The Surveyor-General first mapped the exact junction of the Murrumbidgee and Murray, and then transferred the whole of the expedition in boats to the other side of the Murray. Thus was commenced the investigation of the unexplored side of the Murray, that above its junction with the Murrumbidgee, in other words the Hume proper. On the 30th of June the party camped at Swan Hill, having found the country traversed to exceed expectations in every way. This pleasing state of affairs continued and Mitchell journeyed on without check or hindrance. After finding the Loddon River on the 8th of July, and the Avoca on the 10th, he altered his preconceived plan to follow the main river up, and, drawn by the beauty and pastoral advantages of this new territory, he struck off to the south-west in order to examine it in detail, and trace its development southwards.

More and more convinced that he had found the garden of Australia — he afterwards named this region Australia Felix — Mitchell kept steadily on until he came to the Wimmera, that deceptive river which afterwards nearly lured Eyre to a death of thirst. On the last day of July he discovered the beautiful Glenelg, and launched his boat on its waters. At the outset he was stopped by a fall, was compelled to take to the land once more, and proceeded along the bank, occasionally crossing to examine the other side. On the 18th the boats were again used, the river being much broader, and in two days he reached the coast, a little to the east of Cape Northumberland.

The whole expedition then moved homewards, and reached Portland Bay, where they found that the Henty family from Van Diemen's Land had been established on a farm for about two years. From them Mitchell received some assistance in the way of necessary supplies, and then resumed his journey for home. On the 19th the party separated; Mitchell pushed ahead, leaving Stapylton, his second, to rest the tired animals for a while and then to follow slowly. On his homeward way Mitchell ascended Mount Macedon, and from the summit saw and identified Port Phillip. His return, with his glowing report of the splendid country he had discovered — country fitted for the immediate occupation of the grazier and the farmer — at once stimulated its settlement, and as the man whose explorations were of immediate benefit to the community in general — Mitchell's name stands first on the roll of explorers.

7.5. DISCOVERY OF THE BARCOO.

Some years elapsed before Mitchell — now Sir Thomas — again took to the field of active exploration. The settlement of the upper Darling and the Darling Downs had caused numerous speculations as to the nature of the unknown territory comprising the northern half of Australia. In 1841, communications had passed between the Governor and Captain Sturt, and in December of the same year Eyre, not long returned from his march round the Great Bight, wrote offering his services, provided that no prior claim had been advanced by Sturt. Governor Gipps asked for an estimate of the expenses, but considered Eyre's estimate of five thousand pounds too high, and nothing further was done. In 1843, Sir Thomas Mitchell submitted a plan of exploration to the Governor, who consulted the Legislative Council. The Council approved it and voted one thousand pounds towards expenses. The Governor referred the matter to Lord Stanley, whose reply was favourable, but the project still hung fire. In 1844 Eyre again wrote offering to make the journey at a much more reasonable rate, but his offer was however declined as Mitchell's proposals held the field. In 1845 the fund was increased to two thousand pounds, and Sir George Gipps ordered the Surveyor-General to make his preparations.

Mitchell favoured the search for a practicable road to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and hoped also that he would at last find his long-sought northern-flowing river. In a letter which he then received from a well-known grazier, Walter Bagot, there is mention of an aboriginal description of a large river running northward to the west of the Darling. But as natives in their descriptions frequently confuse flowing to and flowing from, they probably had Cooper's Creek in mind.

During the earlier part of the year, Commissioner Mitchell, the son of Sir Thomas, who was afterwards drowned during a passage to Newcastle, had made a flying survey towards the Darling, and the discovery of the Narran, Balonne, and Culgoa rivers has been attributed to him.

On the 15th of December, 1845, Mitchell started from Buree with a very large company, including E.B. Kennedy as second in command, and W. Stephenson as surgeon and collector. He struck the Darling much higher than Fort Bourke, and it was not until he was across the river that he passed the outermost cattle-stations, which had sprung rapidly into existence since his last visit to the neighbourhood. The Narran was then followed up until the Balonne was reached. This river, in his superlative style, Mitchell pronounced to be the finest in Australia, with the exception of the Murray. He then struck and followed the Culgoa upwards until it divided into two branches; he skirted the main one, which retained the name of the Balonne. On the 12th of April he came to the natural bridge of rocks which he called St. George's bridge, and which is the site of the present town of St. George. Here a temporary camp was formed; Kennedy was left in charge to bring the main body on more slowly; Mitchell with a few men went ahead. He followed up the Balonne to the Maranoa, but as the little he saw of that tributary did not tempt him to further investigation of it, he kept on his course up the main stream until he reached the junction of a stream which he named the Cogoon. This riverlet led him on into a magnificent pastoral district, in the midst of which stood a solitary hill that he named Mount Abundance. It is in his description of this region in his journal that we first find an allusion to the bottle tree.

The party wandered on over a low watershed and came down out on to a river which, from its direction and position, he surmised to be the Maranoa, the stream he had not followed. At this new point it was full of deep reaches of water, and drained a tract of most pleasing land. On its banks he determined to await Kennedy's arrival.

Kennedy overtook him on the 1st of June, bringing from Sir Thomas's son Roderick despatches which had reached the party after the leader's departure. Amongst other items of news in the despatches was the report of Leichhardt's return, and of the hearty reception that he had been accorded in Sydney. One piece of random information, a mere floating newspaper surmise, but enough to arouse Mitchell's suspicious temper, annoyed him greatly. "We understand," it ran, "the intrepid Dr. Leichhardt is about to start another expedition to the Gulf, keeping to the westward of the coast ranges."

As this seemed to indicate an intention of trespassing on Mitchell's present field of operations, he naturally felt some resentment not likely to be allayed by such a paragraph as the following: "Australia Felix and the discoveries of Sir Thomas Mitchell now dwindle into comparative insignificance."

Again leaving Kennedy, he set out to make a very extended excursion. Traversing the country from the head of the Maranoa, he discovered the Warrego River. Keeping north, over the watershed, for a time he fondly imagined that he had reached northward-flowing waters; but the direction of the rivers that he found, the Claude and the Nogoa, soon convinced him of his error, and that he was on rivers of the east coast. Even when he had reached the Belyando, a river which he named and followed down for a short distance, he still deluded himself that he had reached inland waters. Intensely mortified at finding that he was on a tributary of the Burdekin, and approaching the ground already trodden by Leichhardt, he returned to the head of the Nogoa, once more subdivided his party, and formed a stationary camp to await his return from a westward trip.

This time, however, he was blessed with the most splendid success. He found the Barcoo, a river that seemed to him to promise all he sought for. The direction of its upper course easily led him to believe that it was an affluent of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and after tracing it for some distance he returned to camp. The newly-discovered river he named the Victoria, thinking it would prove to be the same as that found by Captain Stokes on his survey expedition. It was on the Barcoo, or Victoria, that Mitchell first noticed the now famous grass that bears his name. On their return journey, they followed down the Maranoa, and at the old camp at St. George's Bridge, they were told by the natives that white men had visited the place during their long absence. It was a singular and welcome feature of Mitchell's discoveries that they had always proved to be adjacent to civilisation, and to be suitable for immediate occupation.

The discovery of the Barcoo was the last feather in the cap of the Surveyor-General. He was doomed to learn soon that it was not the river of his dreams, but only the head waters of that central stream discovered by Sturt, Cooper's Creek; but meanwhile the delusion must have been very gratifying.

In 1851 Mitchell was sent out to report on the Bathurst goldfields, and on a subsequent visit to England he took with him the first specimen of gold and the first diamond found in Australia. He was for a short time one of the members for the Port Phillip electorate, but resigned, as he found faithful discharge of the duties to be incompatible with his office. He patented the boomerang screw propeller, and was the author of many educational and other works, including a translation of the Lusiad of Camoens. Although a strict martinet in his official duties, and subject to a choleric temper, he was strenuous in his devotion to the advancement of Australia, among whose makers he must always occupy a proud position. He died on the 5th of October, 1855, at Carthona, his private residence at Darling Point, Sydney, New South Wales. His wife was a daughter of Colonel Blount.



CHAPTER 8. THE EARLY FORTIES.

8.1. ANGAS McMILLAN AND GIPPSLAND.

Angas McMillan, who was the discoverer of what is now so widely-known as Gippsland, in Victoria, was a manager of the Currawang station, in the Maneroo district. On the 20th of May, 1839, he started from the station on a trip to the southward to look for new grazing land. He had with him but one black boy, named Jimmy Gibbu, who claimed to be the chief of the Maneroo tribe, so that if the party was small, it was very select. On the fifth day McMillan got through to the country watered by the Buchan River, and, from the summit of an elevation which he called Mount Haystack, he obtained a most satisfactory view over the surrounding region. The next night, McMillan, awakened by a noise, found Jimmy Gibbu bending over him with a nulla-nulla in his hand. Fortunately, McMillan's pistol was within easy reach, and, presenting it at Jimmy's head, he compelled him to drop the nulla-nulla, and to account for his suspicious attitude. Jimmy confessed to a fear of the Warrigals, or wild blacks of that region, to acute home-sickness, and to a general unwillingness to proceed further.

McMillan examined the country he had found, and having judged it to be very desirable pastoral land, he returned home. He then formed a new station for Mr. Macalister on some country he had found on the Tambo River, and went himself on another trip of discovery. This time he had four companions with him, two friends named Cameron and Matthews, a stockman, and a black boy. they followed the Tambo River down its course through fine grazing country, both plains and forest, until in due course it led them to the point of its embouchure in the lakes of the south coast. He named Lake Victoria, and then directed his course to the west, where he discovered and named the Nicholson and Mitchell rivers. He was so deeply impressed with the resemblance of the country he had just been over to some parts of Scotland, that he called the district by the now obsolete name of Caledonia Australis. On January the 23rd, 1840, he was out again and discovered and named the Macalister River, and pushed on as far west as the La Trobe River. This addition of rich pastoral regions to the already settled districts was altogether due to Angas McMillan's energy, and is now known as Gippsland, being named officially after Sir George Gipps, the Governor who had the amusing eccentricity of insisting that all the towns laid out during his term of office should have no public squares included within their boundaries, being convinced that public squares encouraged the spread of democracy.

8.2. COUNT STRZELECKI.

Count Strzelecki's expedition through Gippsland with the discovery of which district he is commonly and wrongly credited, was due to the literary and geographical work he had undertaken, as he was gathering material for his well-known work, The Physical Description of New South Wales, Victoria, and Van Diemen's Land. He ascended the south-east portion of the main dividing range, and named the highest peak thereof Kosciusko, after a fancied resemblance in its outline to that Polish patriot's tomb at Cracow.

On the 27th of March, 1840, he reached the cattle station on the Tambo whither McMillan had just returned, and was directed by him on to his newly-discovered country. Strzelecki pushed through to Western Port, meeting with some scrubby and almost inaccessible country during the last stages of his journey. His party had to abandon both horses and packs, and fight its way through a dense undergrowth on a scanty ration of one biscuit and a slice of bacon per day, varied with an occasional native bear. It was here that the Count, who was an athletic man, found that his hardy constitution stood the party in good stead. So weakened and exhausted were his companions, that it was only by constant encouragement that he urged them along at all. When forcing their way through the matted growth of scrub, he often threw himself bodily upon it, breaking a path for his weary followers by the mere weight of his body. It was in a wretched condition that they at last reached Western Port.

8.3. PATRICK LESLIE.

In 1840 Patrick Leslie, who has always been considered the father of settlement on the Darling Downs, started with stock from a New England station, then the most northerly settled district in New South Wales, and formed the first station on the Condamine River, actually before that river had been identified as a tributary of the Darling. There was a general impression that the Condamine flowed north and east, and finally found its way through the main range to the Pacific. In 1841, Stuart Russell, who closely followed Leslie as a pioneer, followed the river down for more than a hundred miles to the westward, and in the following year it was traced still further, and the Darling generally accepted as its final destination.

8.4. LUDWIG LEICHHARDT.



Leichhardt is the Franklin of Australia, around whose name has ever clung a tantalising veil of mystery and romance. Truth to tell, his claim as a leading explorer rests solely on his first and undoubtedly fruitful expedition. But for his mysterious fate mention of his name would not stir the hearts of men as it does. Had he returned from his final venture beaten, it must have been to live through the remainder of his life a disappointed and embittered man. Far better for one of his temperament to rest in the wilderness, his grave unknown, but his memory revered.

Leichhardt was born at Beskow, near Berlin, and studied at Berlin. Through an oversight he was omitted from the list of those liable to the one year of military service, and the sweets of exemption tempted him to evade the three-year military course. The consequence was that he was prosecuted as a deserter, and sentenced in contumaciam. Afterwards, Alexander von Humboldt succeeded, by describing his services to science on his first expedition in Australia, in obtaining a pardon from the King. By a Cabinet Order, Leichhardt received permission to return to Prussia unpunished. When the order arrived in Australia, he had already started on his last expedition.