The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work
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Title: The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work
Author: Ernest Favenc
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXPLORERS OF AUSTRALIA AND THEIR LIFE-WORK ***
THE MAKERS OF AUSTRALASIA.
EARLY VOLUMES
(IN PREPARATION).
CAPTAIN COOK and his Predecessors in Australasian Waters, by REGINALD
FORD, F.R.G.S., Member of the British National Antarctic Expedition.
GOVERNOR PHILLIP and his Immediate successors, BY F.M. BLADEN, Chief
Librarian, Public Library, Sydney.
EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD, by THE EDITOR.
SIR GEORGE GREY, by JAMES COLLIER, sometime Librarian, General Assembly
Library, Wellington.
[Illustration. Captain Charles Sturt, aged about 54 years. From the
painting by Crossland.]
THE
EXPLORERS OF AUSTRALIA
AND THEIR LIFE-WORK.
BY
ERNEST FAVENC,
Explorer, and Author of The History of Australian Exploration, The
Geographical Development of Australia, Tales of the Austral Tropics, The
Secret of the Australian Desert, etc., and Voices of the Desert (Poems).
1908.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In presenting to the public this history of those makers of Australasia
whose work consisted in the exploration of the surface of the continent
of Australia, I have much pleasure in drawing the reader's attention to
the portraits which illustrate the text. It is, I venture to say, the
most complete collection of portraits of the explorers that has yet been
published in one volume. Some of them of course must needs be
conventional; but many of them, such as the portrait of Oxley when a
young man, and of A.C. Gregory, have never been given publicity before;
and in many cases I have selected early portraits, whenever I had the
opportunity, in preference to the oft published portrait of the same
subject when advanced in years.
There are many who assisted me in the collection of these portraits. To
Mr. F. Bladen, of the Public Library, Sydney; Mr. Malcolm Fraser, of
Perth, Western Australia; Mr. Thomas Gill, of Adelaide; Sir John Forrest;
The Reverend J. Milne Curran; Mr. Archibald Meston; and many others my
best thanks are due. In fact, in such a work as this, one cannot hope for
success unless he seek the assistance of those who remembered the
explorers in life, or have heard their friends and relatives talk
familiarly of them. Let me particularly hope that from these pages our
youth, who should be interested in the exploration of their native land,
will form an adequate idea of the character of the men who helped to make
Australia, and of some of the adverse conditions against which they
struggled so nobly.
ERNEST FAVENC.
Sydney, 1908.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The published Journals of all the Explorers of Australia.
Reports of Explorations published in Parliamentary Papers.
History of New South Wales, from the Records. (Barton and Bladen.)
Account of New South Wales, by Captain Watkin Tench.
Manuscript Diaries of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth.
Manuscript Diaries of G.W. Evans. (Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers.)
The Pioneers of Victoria and South Australia, by various writers.
Contemporaneous Australian Journals of the several States.
Private letters and memoranda of persons in all the States.
Manuscript Diary of Charles Bonney.
Pamphlets and other bound extracts on the subject of exploration.
The Year Book of Western Australia.
Records of the Geographical Societies of South Australia and Victoria.
Russell's Genesis of Queensland.
Biographical Notes, by J.H. Maiden.
Spinifex and Sand, by David Carnegie.
INTRODUCTION.
In introducing this book, I should like to commend it to its readers as
giving an account of the explorers of Australia in a simple and concise
form not hitherto available.
It introduces them to us, tells the tale of their long-tried patience and
stubborn endurance, how they lived and did their work, and gives a short
but graphic outline of the work they accomplished in opening out and
preparing Australia as another home for our race on this side of the
world.
The battle that they fought and won was over great natural difficulties
and obstacles, as fortunately there were no ferocious wild beasts in
Australia, while the danger from the hostility of the aborigines (though
a barbarous people) was with care and judgment, with a few exceptions,
avoided.
Their triumph has resulted in peaceful progress and in permanent
occupation and settlement of a vast continent.
Of all the Australian explorers the fate of Leichhardt -- "the Franklin
of Australia," as the author so justly terms him -- is alone shrouded in
mystery. "No man knoweth his sepulchre to this day." His party of six
white men (including Leichhardt) and two black boys, with 12 horses, 13
mules, 50 bullocks, and 270 goats, have never been heard of since they
left McPherson's station on the Cogoon on 3rd April, 1848; and although
there have been several attempts to unravel the mystery, there is
scarcely a possibility of any discovery in regard to their fate ever
being made.
There can be no doubt that the fascination concerning the work of the
early explorers of Australia will gather strength as it goes. Hitherto we
have been too close to them rightly to appreciate what was done. This
book therefore comes at an opportune time, and is a valuable record. The
author has already done a great service to Australian explorations by his
writings, and in the present instance has added to our obligation to him
by condensing the records into a smaller compass, and by that means has
brought it within convenient limits for use in schools and for general
readers.
Of the explorers of Australia, eleven have been honoured by being placed
on the Golden Roll (Gold Medallists) of the Royal Geographical Society of
London; Edward John Eyre being the first to receive the honour in 1843,
and Ernest Giles being the eleventh and last to receive it in 1880. In
the order of Nature one generation passeth away and another generation
cometh, and so it comes to pass that every one on the Golden Roll except
myself has gone to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller
returns.
That the Australian people will always remember the deeds of those, who,
in their day and generation, under arduous and difficult conditions
devoted themselves to the exploration of the Continent goes without
saying, and I, who in bygone years had the honour of assisting in the
task, heartily wish that such fruit may be born of those deeds that
Australia will continue to increase and flourish more and more
abundantly, and thus fulfil her destiny as the great civilising and
dominating power in the Southern Seas.
JOHN FORREST.
The Bungalow,
Hay Street, Perth,
Western Australia,
January 7th, 1908.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
INTRODUCTION, by Sir John Forrest.
CONTENTS.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART 1. EASTERN AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER 1. ORIGINS.
1.1. Governor Phillip.
1.2. Captain Tench.
1.3. The Blue Mountains: Barallier.
1.4. The Blue Mountains: Blaxland.
CHAPTER 2. GEORGE WILLIAM EVANS.
2.1. First Inland Exploration.
2.2. The Lachlan River.
2.3. The Unknown West.
CHAPTER 3. JOHN OXLEY.
3.1. General Biography.
3.2. His First Expedition.
3.3. The Liverpool Plains.
3.4. The Brisbane River.
CHAPTER 4. HAMILTON HUME.
4.1. Early Achievements.
4.2. Discovery of the Hume (Murray).
CHAPTER 5. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
5.1. Coastal Expeditions.
5.2. Pandora's Pass.
5.3. The Darling Downs.
CHAPTER 6. CHARLES STURT.
6.1. Early Life.
6.2. The Darling.
6.3. The Passage of the Murray.
CHAPTER 7. SIR THOMAS MITCHELL.
7.1. Introductory.
7.2. The Upper Darling.
7.3. The Passage of the Darling.
7.4. Australia Felix.
7.5. Discovery of the Barcoo.
CHAPTER 8. THE EARLY FORTIES.
8.1. Angas McMillan and Gippsland.
8.2. Count Strzelecki.
8.3. Patrick Leslie.
8.4. Ludwig Leichhardt.
CHAPTER 9. EDMUND B. KENNEDY.
9.1. The Victoria River and Cooper's Creek.
9.2. A Tragic Expedition.
CHAPTER 10. LATER EXPLORATION IN THE NORTH-EAST.
10.1. Walker in Search of Burke and Wills.
10.2. Burdekin and Cape York Expeditions.
PART 2. CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER 11. EDWARD JOHN EYRE.
11.1. Settlement of Adelaide and the Overlanders.
11.2. Eyre's Chief Journeys.
CHAPTER 12. ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE CENTRE.
12.1. Lake Torrens Pioneers and Horrocks.
12.2. Charles Sturt.
CHAPTER 13. BABBAGE AND STUART.
13.1. B. Herschel Babbage.
13.2. John McDouall Stuart.
CHAPTER 14. BURKE AND WILLS.
CHAPTER 15. BURKE AND WILLS RELIEF EXPEDITIONS AND ATTEMPTS TOWARDS
PERTH.
15.1. John McKinley.
15.2. William Landsborough.
15.3. Major P.E. Warburton.
15.4. William Christie Gosse.
CHAPTER 16. TRAVERSING THE CENTRE.
16.1. Ernest Giles.
16.2. W.H. Tietkins and Others.
PART 3. WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER 17. ROE, GREY, AND GREGORY.
17.1. Roe and the Pioneers.
17.2. Sir George Grey.
17.3. Augustus C. Gregory.
CHAPTER 18. A.C. AND F.T. GREGORY.
18.1. A.C. Gregory on Sturt's Creek and the Barcoo.
18.2. Frank T. Gregory.
CHAPTER 19. FROM WEST TO EAST.
19.1. Austin.
19.2. Sir John Forrest.
19.3. Alexander Forrest.
CHAPTER 20. LATER WESTERN EXPEDITIONS.
20.1. Cambridge Gulf and the Kimberley District.
20.2. Lindsay and the Elder Exploring Expedition.
20.3. Wells and Carnegie in the Northern Desert.
20.4. Hann and Brockman in the North-West.
INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.
INDEX OF PLACE NAMES.
[ILLUSTRATIONS.
Captain Charles Sturt, aged about 54 years. From the painting by
Crossland.
Gregory Blaxland. Statue of Gregory Blaxland, Lands Office, Sydney.
George William Evans. Discoverer of the Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers.
John Oxley. From a portrait in the possession of Mrs. Oxley, of Bowral.
The portrait was presented to Mrs. King, widow of Governor King, in 1810,
and signed by him.
The Lachlan River at the point where Oxley left it on the 4th August,
1818, and struck North-East to gain the Macquarie River and follow that
river up to Bathurst. Photo by the Reverend J.M. Curran.
Hamilton Hume, in his later life.
Allan Cunningham.
Memorial to Allan Cunningham, Botanical Gardens, Sydney.
The Darling River, at Sturt's first view point. Photo by the Reverend J.
Milne Curran.
Junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers.
Sir Thomas Mitchell.
A Chief of the Bogan River Tribe. Photo by the Reverend J.M. Curran.
Ludwig Leichhardt.
John Frederick Mann. Born 1819, died September 7th, 1907, at Sydney. The
last survivor of a Leichhardt expedition.
Edmund B. Kennedy.
Wild Blacks of Cape York signalling.
Frank L. Jardine.
Alec W. Jardine.
Statue of John McDouall Stuart, in the Lands Office, Sydney.
Edward John Eyre.
John Ainsworth Horrocks.
Sturt's Depot Glen. The Glen, eroded in vertical silurian slate, is less
than a mile long. Poole rests by the creek where the gorge opens quite
abruptly on to a vast cretaceous plain. Photo by the Reverend J.M.
Curran.
Poole's Grave and Monument, near Depot Glen, Tibbuburra, New South Wales.
Photo by the Reverend J.M. Curran.
B. Herschel Babbage. Born 1815; died 1878.
John McDouall Stuart.
Robert O'Hara Burke. From a photograph in the possession of E.J. Welch,
of the Howitt Relief Expedition.
William John Wills. From a photograph in the possession of E.J. Welch, of
the Howitt Relief Expedition.
Scenes on Cooper's Creek (After Howitt).
1. Burke's Grave.
2. Where King was Found.
3. Grave of Wills.
John King. From a photo in the possession of E.J. Welch.
Edwin J. Welch, second in command of the Howitt Relief Expedition, and
the first man to find King.
Burke and Wills Monument Statue, Melbourne.
Major P.E. Warburton.
William Christie Gosse, Deputy Surveyor-General of South Australia.
Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller.
A Camel Caravan in an Australian Desert.
W.H. Tietkins, 1878.
Ernest Favenc.
John Septimus Roe, First Surveyor-General of West Australia.
Sir George Grey.
Rock Painting, North-Western Australia.
Augustus C. Gregory, 1880. Photo, Freeman, Sydney.
Frank T. Gregory.
Maitland Brown.
John Forrest in 1874.
Members of the Exploring Expedition, Geraldton to Adelaide, 1874.
Standing, left to right: Tommy Pierre, Tommy Windich, James Kennedy,
James Sweeny.
Seated, left to right: Alexander Forrest (Second in Command), John
Forrest (In Command).
Alexander Forrest.
W. Carr-Boyd and Camel. Photographed at Laverton, Western Australia,
October, 1906.
Sir Thomas Elder, G.C.M.G. Photo: Duryea, Adelaide.
David Lindsay.
L.A. Wells. Photo: Duryea, Adelaide.
David Wynford Carnegie.
Frank Hann. Explorer of the North-West, and discoverer of a stock route
between South Australia and Western Australia. Photo: Mathewson,
Brisbane.
Aboriginal Rock Painting on the Glenelg River. From a photograph by F.S.
Brockman.
Typical Australian Explorers of the early Twentieth Century.
Ernest Giles.
MAPS AND PLANS.
1. Routes of Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson (1813); Evans (1813); Oxley
(1817, 1818, 1823); and Sturt (1828 and 1829).
2. Routes of Hume and Hovell (1824); Sturt (1829 and 1830); and Mitchell
(1836).
3. Routes of Sturt (1829 and 1830); and Hume and Hovell (1824).
4. Routes of Leichhardt (1844 and 1845); Mitchell (1845 and 1846); and
Kennedy (1847 and 1848).
5. Routes of Eyre (1840 and 1841).
6. Basin of Lake Torrens, supposed extent and formation of.
7. Route of Sturt's Central Australian Expedition (1844 to 1846).
8. Routes of Stuart (1858 to 1862); and Burke and Wills (1860 and 1861).
9. Routes of Grey (1836, 1837 and 1839); Forrest (1869, 1870, 1874,
1879); and Giles (1873).
...
PART 1.
EASTERN AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER 1. ORIGINS.
1.1. GOVERNOR PHILLIP.
Arthur Phillip, whose claim to be considered the first inland explorer of
the south-eastern portion of Australia rests upon his discovery of the
Hawkesbury River and a few short excursions to the northward of Port
Jackson, had but scant leisure to spare from his official duties for
extended geographical research. For all that, Phillip and a few of his
officers were sufficiently imbued with the spirit of discovery to find
opportunity to investigate a considerable area of country in the
immediate neighbourhood of the settlement, and, considering the fact that
all their explorations at the time had to be laboriously conducted on
foot, they did their work well.
The first excursion undertaken by Phillip was on the 2nd of March, 1788,
when he went to Broken Bay, whence, after a slight examination, he was
forced to return by the inclemency of the weather. On the 15th of April
he made another attempt to ascertain the character and features of the
unknown land that he had taken possession of. Landing on the shore of the
harbour, a short distance from the North Head, he started on a tour of
examination, and, in the course of his march, penetrated to a distance of
fifteen miles from the coast. At this point he caught sight of the
distant range that was destined to baffle for many years the western
progress of the early settlers. Phillip, on this his first glimpse of it,
christened the northern elevations the Caermarthen Hills, and the
southern elevations the Lansdowne; and a remarkable hill, destined to
become a well-known early landmark, he called Richmond Hill. In the brief
view he had of this range, there was suddenly born in Phillip's mind the
conviction that a large river must have its source therein, and that upon
the banks of such a river, the soil would be found more arable than about
the present settlement. He at once made up his mind to try and gain the
range on a different course.
A week later he landed at the head of the harbour and directed his march
straight inland, hoping to reach either the mountains, which he knew to
be there, or the river in whose existence he firmly believed.
Disappointment dogged his steps; on the first day a belt of dense scrub
forced his party to return and when, on the morrow, they avoided the
scrub by following up a small creek and got into more thinly timbered
country, their slow progress enabled them to accomplish only thirty miles
in five days. By that time, they were short of provisions; there was no
river visible, and the range still looked on them from afar. What cheered
them was the sight of some land that promised richly to reward the labour
of cultivation.
It was not until the 6th of June, 1789, that Phillip resumed his labours
in the field of exploration. The Sirius had then returned from the Cape
of Good Hope, and he could reckon on the assistance of his friend,
Captain Hunter, to re-investigate Broken Bay with the vessel's boats.
Accordingly, two boats were sent on to Broken Bay with provisions, where
they were joined by the Governor and his party, who had marched overland.
Besides Phillip, the party consisted of Captain Hunter and two of his
officers, Captain Collins, Captain Johnston, and Surgeon White.
For two days they were engaged in examining the many inlets and openings
of the Bay, and on the third, they chanced upon a branch that had before
escaped their notice. They proceeded to explore it, and found the river
of which Phillip had dreamed. The next day, renewed examination proved
that it was indeed a noble river, with steep banks and a depth of water
that promised well for navigation.
After their return to Sydney Cove, preparations were at once made to
follow up this important discovery. On the 28th of June, Phillip, again
accompanied by Hunter, left the Cove, having made much the same
arrangements as before. There was a slight misunderstanding with regard
to meeting the boat; but, after this was cleared away, the party soon
floated out on to the waters of the new-found river. They rowed up the
river until they reached the hill that Phillip, at a distance, had
christened Richmond Hill. On traversing a reach of the stream, the main
range, that as yet they had only dimly seen in the distance, suddenly
loomed ahead of them, frowning in rugged grandeur close upon them, as it
seemed. Struck with admiration and astonishment at this unexpected
revelation of the deep ravines and stern and gloomy gorges that scored
its front, over which hung a blue haze, Phillip, almost involuntarily,
named them on the moment; the Blue Mountains. Next morning the explorers
ascended Richmond Hill, from whose crest they looked across a deep,
wooded valley to the mountains still many miles away. After a hasty
examination of the country on the banks of the river, Phillip and his
band returned to the settlement, he having now realised his brightest
hopes and anticipations.
On the 11th of April, 1791, Phillip again started on an expedition, the
object of which was a closer inspection of the Blue Mountains. He was
accompanied this time by Captain Tench and Lieutenant Dawes; the latter,
in December, 1789, had been sent out with a small party to reach the foot
of the range, but had succeeded in approaching only within eleven miles
of the Mountains, whence he was forced to retire by the rugged and broken
nature of the country. On the present occasion, they reached the river
two days after leaving Rose Hill. They followed it for another two days,
but made no further discoveries, being greatly delayed by the constant
detours around the heads of small tributary creeks, too deep to cross in
the neighbourhood of the river.
This was the last exploring expedition undertaken by Governor Phillip.
Considering that his health was not robust, and that the work entailed
was of a specially arduous nature, his personal share in exploring the
country about the little settlement was noteworthy. It proved him to
possess both the foresight and the energy necessary in an explorer.
1.2. CAPTAIN TENCH.
In the month of June, 1789, Captain Watkin Tench, who, during his short
sojourn in the infant colony showed himself as zealous in exploration as
he was keen in his observations, started from the newly-formed redoubt at
Rose Hill, of which he was in command, on a short excursion to examine
the surrounding country. This trip, inspired by Tench's ardent love of
discovery, became a noteworthy one in the annals of New South Wales. It
was made during the month that witnessed the discovery of the Hawkesbury
River. On the second day after his party left Rose Hill, they found
themselves early in the morning on "the banks of a river, nearly as broad
as the Thames at Putney, and apparently of great depth, the current
running very slowly in a northerly direction."
This river, at first known as the Tench, was afterwards named the Nepean
by Phillip, when its identity as a tributary of the Hawkesbury had been
confirmed. Two other slight excursions were made by Tench in company with
Lieutenant Dawes, who was in charge of the Observatory, and ex-surgeon
Worgan. In May, 1791, Tench and Dawes started from Rose Hill and
confirmed the supposition that the Nepean was an affluent of the
Hawkesbury, a matter over which there had been some doubt since its first
discovery by Tench. Tench returned to England in H.M.S. Gorgon, in
December, 1791.
The names of Paterson, Johnson, Palmer, and Laing are also connected with
exploration on the upper Hawkesbury.
1.3. THE BLUE MOUNTAINS: BARALLIER.
The exploration of that portion of Australia which was accessible by the
scanty means of the early settlers was for many years impeded by the
stern barrier of the mountains, and most of their efforts in the
direction of discovery were aimed at surmounting the range that defied
their attacks. Among the many whose attempts were signalised only by
failure were the gallant Bass, whose name, for other reasons, will never
be forgotten by Australians, the quarrelsome and pragmatic Cayley, and
the adventurous Hack. Amongst them there was one, however, whose failure,
read by the light of modern knowledge, was probably a geographical
success. This was Francis Barallier, ensign in the New South Wales corps,
who was encouraged by Governor King to indulge his ardent longing for
discovery. By birth a Frenchman, Barallier had received his ensigncy by
commission on the 13th of February, 1801, having done duty as an ensign
since July, 1800, by virtue of a government general order issued by
Governor Hunter. In August, 1801, he had been appointed by Governor King
military engineer, in place of Captain Abbott resigned. In February,
1802, he was succeeded by Lieutenant George Bellasis, an artillery
officer. Besides his expeditions to the Blue Mountains, he did much
surveying with Lieutenant James Grant in the Lady Nelson. In 1804, he
went to England and saw service in several regiments, distinguishing
himself greatly in military engineering, amongst his works being the
erection of the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square, the designer of which
was Mr. Railton. Barallier died in 1853.
Peron, the French naturalist, tells us that when in Sydney in October,
1802, he persuaded Governor King to fit out a party to attempt the
passage of the mountains, and that a young Frenchman, aide-de-camp to the
Governor, was intrusted with the leadership. He returned, however,
without having been able to penetrate further than his English
predecessors.
On the following month, however, Barallier set out from Parramatta, on
his famous embassy to the King of the Mountains. This fictitious embassy
arose from the fact that Colonel Paterson having refused Barallier the
required leave, King claimed him as his aide-de-camp, and sent him on
this embassy. Barallier started with four soldiers, five convicts, and a
waggon-load of provisions drawn by two bullocks. He crossed the Nepean
and established a depot at a place known as Nattai, whence the waggon was
sent back to Sydney for provisions, Barallier, with the remainder of his
men and a native, pushing out westwards. After this preliminary
examination he returned to the depot, and made a fresh departure on the
22nd of November, and, continuing mostly directly westwards, he reached a
point (according to his chart) about one hundred and five miles due west
from Lake Illawarra. If this position is even approximately correct, he
must have been at the very source of the Lachlan River.
I give a few extracts from his diary, which was not even translated until
the Historical Records of New South Wales were collected by Mr. F.M.
Bladen. They refer to the crossing of the range.
"On the 24th of November, I followed the range of elevated mountains,
where I saw several kangaroos. This country is covered with meadows and
small hills, where trees grow a great distance apart...I resumed my
journey, following various directions to avoid obstacles, and at 4
o'clock I arrived on the top of a hill where I discovered that the
direction of the chain of mountains extended itself north-westerly to a
distance which I estimated to be about thirty miles, and which turned
abruptly at right angles. It formed a barrier nearly north and south,
which it was necessary to climb over...At 7 o'clock I arrived on the
summit of another hill, from where I noticed three openings: the first on
the right towards North 50 West; the other in front of me, and which
appeared very large, was west from me; and the third was South 35 West.
...This discovery gave me great hope, and the whole of the party appeared
quite pleased, thinking that we had surmounted all difficulties, and that
we were going to enter a plain, the apparent immensity of which gave
every promise of our being able to penetrate far into the interior of the
country...At six o'clock I found myself at a distance of about two miles
from the western passage...I was then only half-a-mile from the passage,
and I sent on two men in order to discover it, instructing them to ascend
the mountain to the north of this passage...I waited till 7 o'clock for
my two men, who related to me, that after passing the range which was in
front of us we would enter an immense plain, that from the height where
they were on the mountain, they had caught sight of only a few hills
standing here and there on this plain, and that the country in front of
them had the appearance of a meadow...At daybreak I left with two men to
verify myself the configuration of the ground, and to ascertain whether
the passage of the Blue Mountains had really been effected. I climbed the
chain of mountains north of us. When I had reached the middle of this
height the view of a plain as vast as the eye could reach confirmed to me
the report of the previous day...I discovered towards the west and at a
distance which I estimated to be forty miles, a range of mountains higher
than those we had passed...From where I was, I could not detect any
obstacle to the passage right to the foot of those mountains...After
having cut a cross of St. Andrew on a tree to indicate the terminus of my
second journey, I returned by the same route I had come."
Barallier concludes his diary by mentioning another projected expedition
over the mountains from Jervis Bay. But no record of such a journey has
ever come to light.
[Illustration. Statue of Gregory Blaxland, Lands Office, Sydney.]
[Map. Routes of Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson (1813); Evans (1813);
Oxley (1817, 1818, 1823); and Sturt (1828 and 1829).]
1.4. THE BLUE MOUNTAINS: BLAXLAND.
Whether Barallier succeeded or not in reaching the summit of the
mountains, the verdict accepted at that date was that they had not been
passed; and until the year 1813, they were regarded as impenetrable. The
narrative of the crossing of these mountains, and the chain of events
that led up to the successful attempt is widely known, but only in a
general way. It is for this reason that a longer and more detailed
account is given in these pages; and as the expedition was successful in
opening up a way to the interior of the Continent, it is fitting that its
leader and originator, Gregory Blaxland, should be classed amongst the
makers of Australasia.
Blaxland was born in Kent, in 1771, and arrived in the colony in 1806,
accompanied by his wife and three children. He settled down to the
congenial occupation of stockbreeding, on what was then considered to be
a large scale. Finding that his stock did not thrive so well in the
immediate neighbourhood of the sea coast, and wanting more land for
pasturing his increasing herds, he made anxious enquiries in all
directions as to the possibility of crossing the Blue Mountains inland.
Nobody would entertain such a suggestion, the failures had been too many:
every one to whom he broached the subject declared it to be impossible,
prophesying that the extension of the settlement westward would forever
be obstructed by their unscalable heights. Blaxland, however, was not
intimidated by these disheartening predictions; and, in 1811, he started
out on a short journey of investigation, in company with three Europeans
and two natives. On this trip he found that by keeping on the crowning
ridge or dividing water-shed between the streams running into the Nepean
and those that fed what he then took to be an inland river, he got along
fairly well. Some time afterwards he accompanied the Governor in a boat
excursion up the Warragamba, a tributary of the Nepean, and though there
were no noteworthy results, it convinced Blaxland that, could he follow
his former tactics of adhering to the leading ridge that formed the
divide between the tributaries of the northern bank of this river and the
affluents of the Grose, a tributary of the Hawkesbury, he would attain
his object and reach the highlands. It will thus be seen that Blaxland
acted with a definite and well-thought-out mode of procedure; and that
the ridge he selected for the attempt was chosen with judgment based on
considerable knowledge of the locality, which he gained from many talks
with the men who hunted and frequented the foothills of the range.
Finally, when he had arranged his plan of assault, he confided his
intention to two friends, Lieutenant William Lawson and William Charles
Wentworth, whose names are associated with his in the conquest of the
Mountains. They both consented to accompany him, and agreed to follow his
idea of stubbornly following one leading spur. Blaxland's former
expedition had convinced him that the local knowledge of the natives did
not extend far enough to be of any service, and they therefore did not
take any aborigines with them. They took pack-horses, however, which
proves that the party started with a well-founded faith in their ultimate
success, and gave no heed to the terrifying descriptions of former
travellers.
The besetting hindrance to their progress was the low scrub of brushwood
that greatly delayed the pack-horses. This obstacle was overcome only by
patiently advancing before the horses every afternoon, and cutting a
bridle-track for the succeeding day's stage. Thus literally, the way that
ultimately led into the interior was won by foot, and the little
pioneering band eventually descended into open grazing country at the
head of what is now known as the Cox River. The outward and return trip
occupied less than one month's time; which speaks volumes for the wise
choice of route; but what says more, is the fact that no better natural,
upward pathway has since been found.
A synopsis of Blaxland's journal is given here, commencing with a few
quoted lines of preamble:--
"On Tuesday, May 11th, 1813, Mr. Gregory Blaxland, Mr. William Wentworth
and Lieutenant Lawson, attended by four servants, with five dogs and four
horses laden with provisions and other necessaries, left Mr. Blaxland's
farm at South Creek for the purpose of endeavouring to affect a passage
over the Blue Mountains, between the Western River* and the River
Grose...The distance travelled on this and subsequent days was computed
by time, the rate being estimated at about two miles per hour."
*[Footnote.] The Warragamba.
They camped at the foot of the ridge that was to witness the last
struggle between man and the Mountains. On the first day, they did three
miles and a half in a direction varying from south-west to
west-north-west, and that night obtained a little grass for the horses,
and some water in a rocky hole.
The heavy dews in the morning retarded any attempts at early departures,
as the thick wet brush rendered it difficult to drive the horses, so
that, as a rule, it was nine o'clock before they were able to strike
camp. The ridge, still favouring the direction of west and north-west, on
the third day they arrived at a tract of land, hilly, but with tolerable
grass on it. Here they found traces of a former white visitant in the
shape of a marked-tree line. Two miles from this point, they met with a
belt of brushwood so dense that for the first time they were forced to
alter their course; but the subordinate spurs on either side ending in
rocky precipices, they had to return and again confront the scrub. In
these circumstances, they made up their minds to rely upon axe and
tomahawk to win a way, and so next morning fell to work cutting a passage
for the horses. The ascent was also now becoming steep and rough, and on
this day some of the horses fell while struggling up with their loads.
The first day's work gained for them five miles, but at the end of their
toil they had to retrace their weary way back to the last night's camp.
The next day they cleared the track for only two miles further ahead; so
much time being wasted in walking backwards and forwards to the work.
There was no grass amongst the scrub that encompassed them, and when, on
Monday, they determined to move the camp equipage forward, they packed
the horses with as much cut-grass as they could put on them. This
amounted to, according to Lawson's diary, about two hundred pounds weight
for each horse, which, in addition to their ordinary loads, must have
been a very weighty packload for uphill work. However, according to
Blaxland, "they stood it well." They obtained no water for their animals
that night, and what they wanted for their own requirements had to be
painfully carried up a cliff about six hundred feet in height. On the
succeeding day they suddenly came on what at first appeared to be an
impassable barrier. The ridge which they had so pertinaciously followed,
had, for the last mile narrowed and dwindled down into a sharp
razor-backed spur, flanked with rugged and abrupt gullies on either
slope. Across this narrow way now stretched a perpendicularly-sided mass
of rock, which seemed effectually to bar their path. The removal of a few
large boulders however, revealed an aperture which, after some labour,
they widened sufficiently to allow the pack-horses to squeeze through.
Once through they began to ascend what they estimated to be the second
tier of the Mountains. Shortly after they left camp that morning they
came on a pile of stones, or cairn, evidently the work of some European,
which they attributed to Bass. They were much elated at the thought that
they had now passed beyond the limit of any previous attempt.*
*[Footnote.] This cairn was afterwards named Cayley's Repulse by Governor
Macquarie: but recent research goes to show that Cayley followed the
valley of the Grose, and was many miles to the north of where the cairn
was found. According to Flinders, Bass was not on the high ridge
traversed by Blaxland and party.
They could now look round with triumph on the panorama spread beneath
their view, and from the superior elevation which they had obtained, they
took the bearings of several noticeable landmarks that they had seen
before only from the flat country. The labour of cutting a path each day
for the horses for the next day's march had, however, still to be
continued; but the crest of the ridge was again wider, though the gullies
on each side were as steep as before. That night, in camp, the dogs were
uneasy throughout the night, and several times gave tongue and aroused
the sleepers, tired with their day's work. From what they found
afterwards, they had good reason to believe that the blacks had been
lurking around meditating an attack.
They then passed over the locality known in the present day as
Blackheath, and soon afterwards had their course diverted to the
northward by what Blaxland terms "a stone wall rising perpendicularly out
of the side of the mountain." This they tried to descend, but without
success, and so kept on along its brow. Undergrowth still delayed them,
and they still had to spend their energies in hewing a passage, until on
the 28th of the month, they camped on the edge of the steep descent that
had lately marched beside them. The decline was, however, not quite so
abrupt, and the face no longer composed of solid rock. They paused to
overlook what lay before them and immediately below, and found the view
more gratifying than they had anticipated. What they had at first taken
for sandy barren soil proved now, on nearer inspection, to be forest-land
fairly covered with a good growth of grass. The horses not having tasted
fresh grass for some days, they cut a slanting trench across the sloping
face of the descent in order to afford the horses some sort of foot-hold,
and managed to get them down to a little feed that evening.
Next morning they were up and away early, and reached the foot of the
mountain (Mount York) at 9 a.m., having had to carry the pack-loads down
most of the way themselves, as it was too steep for laden horses to
preserve their balance with safety. The actual base of the mountain was
reached through a gap in the rocks, some thirty feet in width.
They now found themselves on what was then termed meadow land, drained by
the upper tributaries of the Warragamba; and this country presenting no
serious obstacle to their further progress, they rightly concluded that
they had now surmounted every difficulty. They followed the mountain
stream up for some distance and, at the furthest point they reached,
ascended a high sugar-loaf hill, which surveyor Evans, who followed in
their footsteps, called Mount Blaxland. From the summit they had an
extensive view all around, and Blaxland described the character of the
country they saw in the following words: "Forest and grass land,
sufficient to support the stock of the colony for the next thirty years."
Just here, let us compare this prophecy with a similar one made by Evans
a few months afterwards, on the pasture lands of the upper Macquarie:
"The increase of stock for some hundred years cannot overrun it."
The provisions of the explorers were now nearly expended; their apparel,
especially their footgear, was in rags and tatters; on the other hand,
the work that they had set themselves to do was well done. They had
vanquished the Blue Mountains. Their return was uneventful. After
breakfast on the 6th of June, they crossed the Nepean, their provisions,
with the exception of a little flour, being quite consumed. We thus see
how in the end the impenetrable range, that had so long overawed the
colonists with its frown, was overcome, with slight difficulty, when
local experience combined with method, was arrayed against it. To liken
the former expeditions to Blaxland's is to compare a few headlong
assaults with a well-conceived and skilfully worked-out attack. The men
themselves write slightingly of the feat. Blaxland says: "the passage of
the Blue Mountains might be easily effected." Lawson's opinion of the
mountain is: "that there would be no difficulty in making a good road";
and Wentworth's verdict is: "that the country they reached is easy of
access." Evans, who was hot upon their trail, gives as his opinion: "that
there are no hills on the ridge that their ascent or descent is in any
way difficult."
The tidings brought back by the party of successful pioneers created the
greatest excitement in the little colony. No longer would the mountainous
barrier stand defiantly in their western path. For over thirty years it
had laughed at their puny efforts to cross its rugged crest, but its time
had come at last; the way to the unknown west was now open, and
rejoicingly the settlers prepared to follow on the explorers' trail. What
the mysterious interior might hold, they could not imagine; but the gates
thereto being thrown wide at last, its secrets would be soon known to
them.
Blaxland died on the 3rd of January, 1853, having lived long enough to
witness the wonderful advance in settlement due to his energies.
CHAPTER 2. GEORGE WILLIAM EVANS.
[Illustration. George W. Evans, Discoverer of the Macquarie and Lachlan
Rivers.]
2.1. FIRST INLAND EXPLORATION.
George William Evans, Deputy-Surveyor of Lands, came forward at this
stage as the most prominent figure in Australian exploration. To him is
due the honour, without dispute or cavil, of being the first discoverer
of an Australian river flowing into the interior. For some reason he has
never received adequate recognition of his important explorations, and he
is well-nigh forgotten by the people of New South Wales, the state that
has benefited most by his labours. After Oxley's second expedition, his
name appears to have been overshadowed by his official superior's. Yet
his work was invariably successful, and his labour in the field
unremitting.
Evans was born in England, at Warwick, in 1778. When a young man he went
to the Cape of Good Hope, where he obtained an appointment in the
dockyard, and while there he married his first wife, Janet Melvill. In
1802 he was appointed Deputy Surveyor-General, and came to Australia in
H.M.S. Buffalo, in order to take up his official duties. It was while he
held this post that he carried out his work of exploration.
When he returned from these explorations, he resumed his duties as Deputy
Surveyor-General only, until he was permanently settled in Tasmania,
where he remained in office until the year 1825, when he resigned in
disgust at his treatment by his superiors.
Evans lived at a time when official jealousies were rife, and men in
position often heedless of the justice or veracity of their statements
when influenced by party rancour. The machinations of a cabal led by
Governor Arthur, and an effort made to deprive him of his well-deserved
pension, necessitated Evans's departure for England to defend his claims.
In this he was only partially successful, for the pension which it was
understood was for life, was stopped in 1832. He returned to Tasmania,
and passed the rest of his days at his residence, Warwick Lodge, at the
head of Newtown Bay. He died at the age of seventy-four, and is buried in
the old cemetery, Hobart; his second wife, Lucy Parris, rests in the same
grave.
Evans was a clever draughtsman, and some of his sketches of the country
explored are reproduced in Oxley's journal. He also published a book
entitled History and Description of the Present State of Van Diemen's
Land.
It was on Saturday, the 20th of November, 1813, that Evans, in charge of
five men, one of whom had been with Blaxland's party, started from the
point of forest land on the Nepean known as Emu Island. He lost no time
in following the tracks of the late expedition, leaving the measurement
until his return. On Friday, the 26th, he reached Blaxland's furthest
point, and thenceforward passed over new ground. It is somewhat amusing
to note that his opinions of the country when on his outward way and on
his homeward, are widely divergent. He candidly and ingenuously writes,
after he has been on the table-land:--
"What appeared to me fine country on my first coming to it, looks
miserable now after returning from so superior and good a country."
On Tuesday, the 30th of November, he gained a ridge that he had had in
view for some time, though he had been "bothered" by the hills in his
efforts to reach it. From this ridge he caught a tantalising view, a
glimpse of the outskirts of the vast interior.
There before him, the first white man to look upon the scene, lay the
open way to two thousand miles of fair pasture-lands and brooding
desert-wastes -- of limitless plains and boundless rolling downs -- of
open grassy forests and barren scrubs -- of solitary mountain peaks and
sluggish rivers; and, though then hidden from even the most brilliant
imagination, the wondrous potentialities latent in that silent and
untrodden region. If a vision of the future had been vouchsafed
Deputy-Surveyor Evans as he stood and gazed -- a vision of all that would
cover the spacious lands before and beyond him before one hundred years
had passed away -- the entry he made in his diary would surely have
reflected in its style his flight of imagination. Instead, we have the
prosaic statement:--
"I came to a very high mount, when I was much pleased with the sight
westward. I think I can see 40 miles which had the look of open country."
In a pleasant valley, he came upon a large "riverlett," and on its banks
they camped. There they shot ducks and caught "trout" -- as he called the
Murray Cod -- the first of the species to tickle the palate of a white
man; fine specimens, too, weighing five and six pounds. As he proceeded
further and further, he became enchanted with the scenery: "The
handsomest I have yet seen, with gently-rising hills and dales
well-watered" -- and he finally notes that language failed him to
describe it adequately.
Evans named the river that led him through this veritable land of promise
the Fish River, and a river which joined its waters with it from the
south he called the Campbell River. The united stream he christened, as
in duty bound, the Macquarie. Unimpeded in his course, he followed the
Macquarie until he was 98 1/2 measured miles -- for they had been
chaining since passing the limit of the first explorers -- from the
termination of Blaxland's journey. He then decided to return; for he had
gained all the information he had been sent to seek; and though game was
plentiful, his party were without shoes, and the horses were suffering
from sore backs.
Thus was concluded in a most satisfactory manner the first journey of
exploration into the interior. Evans constantly saw, during his progress,
unmistakeable traces of the natives; but he interviewed only a small
party of five. This representative band of the inland aborigines of
Australia was composed of two lubras and some picaninnies, both the women
being blind of the right eye.
The party reached the Nepean on their return journey on the 8th of
January, 1814. Mr. Cox was immediately intrusted with the superintendence
of the work of making a public road over the range, following closely the
same route as that taken by Blaxland's party. This work was completed in
the year 1815, and on the 26th of April of the same year, Governor
Macquarie and a large staff set out to visit the newly-found territory.
The Governor arrived at the recently-formed town of Bathurst on the 4th
of May; but before his arrival Evans had been again ordered out on
another exploring expedition to the south-west.
2.2. THE LACHLAN RIVER.
Evans started from Bathurst on the 13th of May, 1815. He commenced his
journey along the fine flat country then known as Queen Charlotte Vale,
maintaining a southerly course for a day or two; but finding himself
still amongst the tributaries of the Campbell River, he retraced his
steps some twelve or fourteen miles in order to avoid a row of rocky
hills. He then struck out more to the westward. On Thursday, the 23rd, he
came to a chain of ponds bearing nearly north-west, and from a commanding
ridge saw before him a prospect as gratifying as some of the scenes
viewed on his former trip.
"I never saw a more pleasing-looking country. I cannot express the
pleasure I feel in going forward. The hills we have passed are excellent
land, well-wooded. To the south, distant objects are obscured by high
hills, but in the south-west are very distant mountains, under them
appears a mist as tho' rising from a river. It was the like look round to
the west, but beyond the loom of high hills are very faintly
distinguished."
This was the first view Evans obtained of the Lachlan valley. The ponds
he had met with gradually grew into a connected stream: other ponds
united with them from the north-east, and he writes: "they have at the
end of the day almost the appearance of a river." On the 24th he came to
a creek which joined "the bed of a river rising in a North 30 East
direction, now dry except in hollow places. It is fully 70 feet wide,
having a pebbly bottom; on each side grow large swamp-oaks."
On Thursday, the 1st of June, this river holding a definite course to the
westward, and he being clear of the points of the hills, which hitherto
had hindered him greatly, he determined to return, as he was running
short of provisions.
"To-morrow I am necessitated to return, and shall ascend a very high hill
I left on my right hand this morning. I leave no mark here more than
cutting trees. On one situated in an angle of the river on a wet creek
bearing north I have deeply carved EVANS, 1st JUNE, 1815."*
*[Footnote.] This tree, a tall and sturdy gum, flourished for over ninety
years, and when in its prime was, unfortunately, owing to the spread of
agricultural settlement, inadvertently ring-barked and killed. It must
have been a fine tree when marked by the explorer, and though dead it is
still standing at the date of the publication of this book. In 1906, the
shield of wood bearing the inscription, was cut off by Mr. James Marsh,
of Marshdale, and is now preserved in the Australian Museum in Sydney,
New South Wales. It is the oldest marked-tree in the whole of
Australasia.
On the next morning Evans ascended the hill he alluded to, and from the
summit enjoyed a most extended view of the surrounding country, which he
compared to a view of the ocean. On his way back to Bathurst, he bestowed
upon the new river the name it now bears. A short passage in his diary,
written during his return, is of peculiar interest, as it contains the
first mention of snow seen in Australia by white men. On Thursday, the
8th of June, he writes:--
"The mountains I observed bearing north-west are covered with snow; I
thought on my way out that their tops looked rather white. To-day it was
distinguished as plain as ever I saw snow on the mountains in Van
Diemen's Land. I never felt colder weather than it has been some days
past. We have broken ice full two inches thick."
On the 12th of June the party returned to Bathurst, and Evans had by that
time accomplished two of the most momentous journeys ever made in
Australia. It was not his actual discoveries alone that brought him fame,
but the vast field for settlement these discoveries opened up. The
independent explorations of Surveyor Evans ceased after his discovery of
the Lachlan; thenceforward he served Australia as second to Lieutenant
Oxley.
2.3. THE UNKNOWN WEST.
The settlers of that day took every advantage of the new outlets for
their energies, thrown open to them by the recent successful
explorations. Cattle and sheep were rapidly driven forward on to the
highlands, and, favoured by a beautiful site, the town of Bathurst soon
assumed an orderly appearance. Private enterprise had also been at work
elsewhere. The pioneer settlers were making their way south; the tide of
settlement flowed over the intermediate lands to the Shoalhaven River;
and in the north they had commenced the irresistible march of
civilization up the Hunter River.
It was in the Shoalhaven district that young Hamilton Hume, the first
Australian-born explorer to make his mark in the field, gained his
bushcraft.
Governor Macquarie, during his term of office, did his best to foster
exploration; and it was fortunate that the first advance into the
interior occurred when there was a Governor in Australia who did not look
coldly upon geographical enterprise.
The men who entered first upon the task of solving the geographical
problems of the interior of the Australian continent were doomed to meet
with much bitter disappointment. The varying nature of the seasons caused
the different travellers to form contrary and perplexing ideas, often
with regard to the same tract of country. What appeared to one man a land
of pleasant gurgling brooks, flowing through rich pastures, appeared to
another as a pitiless desert, unfit for human foot to venture upon.
Oxley, who traversed what is now the cream of the agricultural portion of
the state of New South Wales, speaks of the main part of it in terms of
the bitterest condemnation. His error was of course rather a mistake in
judgment than the result of inaccurate observation.
Some of the colonists nursed far fonder hopes, and the general opinion
seemed to be that these western flowing rivers would gather in
tributaries, and having swollen to a size worthy of so great a continent,
seek the sea on the west coast. W.C. Wentworth, who certainly was capable
of forming an opinion deserving consideration, wrote thus of the then
untraced Macquarie River:--
"If the sanguine hopes to which the discovery of this river (the
Macquarie) has given birth should be realised, and it should be found to
empty itself into the ocean in the north-west coast, which is the only
part of this vast island that has not been accurately surveyed, in what
mighty conceptions of the future power and greatness of this colony may
we not reasonably indulge? The nearest point at which Mr. Oxley left off
to any part of the western coast is very little short of two thousand
miles. If this river therefore be already of the size of the Hawkesbury
at Windsor, which is not less than two hundred and fifty yards in
breadth, and of sufficient depth to float a seventy-four gun ship, it is
not difficult to imagine what must be its magnitude at its confluence
with the ocean, before it can arrive at which it has to traverse a
country nearly two thousand miles in extent. If it possesses the usual
sinuosities of rivers, its course to the sea cannot be less than from
five to six thousand miles, and the endless accession of tributary
streams which it must receive in its passage through so great an extent
of country will, without doubt, enable it to vie in point of magnitude
with any river in the world."
It was to realise such ambitious hopes as these that Oxley went forth to
penetrate into the interior.
CHAPTER 3. JOHN OXLEY.
[Illustration. John Oxley. From a portrait in the possession of Mrs.
Oxley, of Bowral. The portrait was presented to Mrs. King, widow of
Governor King in 1810, and signed by him.]
3.1. GENERAL BIOGRAPHY.
Oxley was born in England in the early part of 1781. In his youth he
entered the navy, saw active service in many parts of the world, and rose
to the rank of Lieutenant. He came to Australia in January, 1812, and was
appointed Surveyor-General.
Throughout his career in Australia, Oxley would seem to have won the
friendship and respect of all he came in contact with. Captain Charles
Sturt, in the journal of his first expedition, wrote of him as follows:--
"A reflection arose to my mind, on examining these decaying vestiges of a
former expedition, whether I should be more fortunate than the leader of
it, and how far I should be able to penetrate beyond the point which had
conquered his perseverance. Only a week before I left Sydney I had
followed Mr. Oxley to the tomb. A man of great quickness and of uncommon
ability. The task of following up his discoveries was no less enviable
than arduous."
These thoughts were suggested to Sturt when standing at one of Oxley's
old camps, and coming from such a man carry great weight.
The following obituary notice of Oxley appeared in the Government Gazette
of May 27th, 1828.
"It would be impossible for his Excellency, consistently with his
feelings, to announce the decease of the late Surveyor-General without
endeavouring to express the sense he entertains of Mr. Oxley's services,
though he cannot do justice to them.
"From the nature of this colony, the office of Surveyor-General is
amongst the most important under Government; and to perform its duties in
a manner Mr. Oxley has done for a long series of years is as honourable
to his zeal and abilities as it is painful for the Government to be
deprived of them.
"Mr. Oxley entered the public service at an early period of his life, and
has filled the important situation of Surveyor-General for the last
sixteen years.
"His exertions in the public service have been unwearied, as has been
proved by his several expeditions to explore the interior. The public
have reaped the benefit while it is to be apprehended that the event,
which they cannot fail to lament, has been accelerated by the privations
and fatigues of these arduous services. Mr. Oxley eminently assisted in
unfolding the advantages of this highly favoured colony from an early
stage of its existence, and his name will ever be associated with the
dawn of its advancement. It is always gratifying to the Government to
record its approbation of the services of meritorious public officers,
and in assigning to Mr. Oxley's name a distinguished place in that class
to which his devotion to the interests of the colony has so justly
entitled him, the Government would do honour to his memory in the same
degree as it feels the loss it has sustained in his death."
Oxley died at Kirkham, his private residence near Sydney, on the 25th of
May, 1828. Though his judgment was at times at fault, as will be seen
later on, he was essentially a successful explorer; for, although he did
not in every case achieve the object aimed at, he always brought back his
men without loss, and he opened up vast tracts of new country. John
Oxley's personality is not very familiar, but the portrait presented to
the reader in this volume was taken in the prime of his life, before he
suffered the scars of doubtful battle with the Australian wilderness. It
has never been published before, and is taken from the original miniature
that he presented to Mrs. King, widow of Governor King, in 1810.
3.2. HIS FIRST EXPEDITION.
On this, Oxley's first journey of exploration, Evans accompanied him as
second in command, and another man who has left an immortal name was also
with him -- Allan Cunningham, officially known as King's Botanist.
Charles Fraser, well-known in connection with the early history both of
New South Wales and of Western Australia, accompanied Oxley under the
title of Colonial Botanist. There were nine other men in the party --
boatmen, horse-tenders, and so forth; they had with them two boats and
fourteen pack and riding-horses. A depot was first formed at the junction
of the small creek whence Evans had turned back, and where he had marked
a tree with his initials in 1815. There the boats were launched and
preparations completed for the final start. On the 6th of April, 1817,
Oxley left Sydney and joined his party at the depot on the 1st of May.
Thence he soon commenced this most momentous journey in Australia's early
annals, eager to penetrate into the unknown, and inspired with hopes of
solving the mystery of the outlet of this inland river.
Disappointment marks the tone of Oxley's journal from the start; the
exceeding flatness of the country, the many ana-branches of the river,
the low altitude of its banks, and the absence of any large tributary
streams, above all, the dismal impression made by the monotony of the
surroundings, seem to have depressed Oxley's spirit. He appears to have
formed the idea that the interior tract he was approaching was nothing
more than a dead and stagnant marsh -- a huge dreary swamp, within whose
bounds the inland rivers lost their individuality and merged into a
lifeless morass. A more melancholy picture could not be imagined, and
with such an awesome thought constantly haunting his mind there is no
wonder that he became morbid, and that the dominant tone of his journal,
whilst on the Lachlan, is so hopelessly pessimistic.
"These flats," he says, "are certainly not adapted for cattle; the grass
is too swampy, and the bushes, swamps, and lagoons are too thickly
intermingled with the better portion to render it a safe or desirable
grazing country. The timber is universally bad and small; a few misshapen
gum trees on the immediate banks of the river may be considered an
exception."
The channel of the river now divided, and Oxley followed the channel on
the northern side, which they were skirting. But before they had
progressed a mile beyond the point of divergence, they reached the spot
where the river overflowed its banks and its course was lost in the
marshes. It was on the 12th of May that they received this check to their
as yet uninterrupted progress.
"Observing an eminence about half-a-mile from the south side, we crossed
over the horses and baggage at a place where the water was level with the
banks, and which, when within its usual channel, did not exceed thirty or
forty feet in width.
"We ascended the hill, and had the mortification to perceive that the
termination of our research was reached, at least down this branch of the
river. The whole country from the west, north-west, round to the north,
was either a complete marsh or lay under water."
The country to the south and south-west appearing more elevated. Oxley
determined to return to the place where the branches separated, and to
try his fortune on the other one. This, after a while, proved as
unsatisfactory as the one they had abandoned. Bitterly disappointed,
Oxley altered his plans entirely. He resolved to cease trying to follow
the river through this water-logged country, and determined to strike out
on a direct course to the south coast in the neighbourhood of Cape
Northumberland. In this way he hoped to cross any river that these dreary
marshes and swamps gave birth to, and that found an outlet into the
Southern Ocean, between Spencer's Gulf and Cape Otway.
This resolve was at once carried out. The boats were hauled up and
secured together; all unnecessary articles were abandoned to suit the
reduced means of transit; and at nine o'clock on May 18th they said
farewell to this weary river and started to encounter fresh troubles
under another guise. Instead of travelling in a superfluity of water they
now found themselves straitened by drought, and the work began to tell
upon the horses. Scrub, too, that besetting hindrance of so many
Australian explorers, began to impede their onward path. Eucalyptus brush
overrun with creepers and prickly acacia bushes united to bar the way,
and when, after much toil and suffering, they at last reached the point
of a range, which Oxley named the Peel Range, the leader had reluctantly
again to change his mind and to abandon the idea of making south-west to
the coast. Sick at heart of this sequence of disastrous happenings, he
confided his feeling of sorrow to his journal.
"June 4th. Weather as usual fine and clear, which is the greatest comfort
we enjoy in these deserts abandoned by every living creature capable of
getting out of them. I was obliged to send back to our former
halting-place for water, a distance of near eight miles; this is terrible
for the horses, who are in general extremely reduced; but two in
particular cannot, I think, endure this miserable existence much longer.
"At five o'clock two of the men whom I had sent to explore the country to
the south-west and see if any water could be found, returned after
proceeding six or seven miles; they found it impossible to go any farther
in that direction, or even south, from the thick bushes that intersected
their course on every side; and no water (nor in fact the least sign of
any) was discovered either by them or by those who were sent in search of
it nearer our little camp.
"June 5th. From everything I can see of the country to the south-west, it
appears, upon the most mature deliberation, highly imprudent to persevere
longer in that direction, as the consequences to the horses of want of
grass and water might be most serious; and we are well assured that
within forty miles on that point the country is the same as before passed
over...Our horses are unable to go more than eight or ten miles a day,
but even they must be assured of finding food of which in these deserts
the chances are against the existence."
On the following day, June 6th, Oxley, having changed his course to the
west and north-west, made another effort to escape from the surroundings
that so disheartened him. On the 4th of June, before leaving, Allan
Cunningham planted some acorns and peach and apricot stones in honour of
the King's birthday. Upon this episode Oxley remarks, that they would
serve to commemorate the day and situation, "should these desolate plains
be ever again visited by civilised man, of which, however, I think there
is very little probability." All this only shows how the lack of
experience of the paradoxical nature of the Australian interior induced
Oxley to form an absurdly erroneous idea of the country in its virgin
state. His observations read almost like a present-day description of the
sandy spinifex desert of the north-west of Western Australia, and, in
fact, the very same remark was made by Warburton in 1873, when traversing
that awful desert. He confessed his uncertainty about the longitude of
Joanna Spring, and says that it did not matter, as no white man would
ever come into the desert again in search of the oasis.
But Oxley's troubles were increasing, and on June 8th he wrote: "The
whole country in these directions, as far as the eye can reach, was one
continued thicket of eucalyptus scrub. It was impossible to proceed that
way, and our situation was too critical to admit of delay: it was
therefore resolved to return back to our last station on the 6th, under
Peel's Range, if for no other purpose than that of giving the horses
water."
Forced to return once more, Oxley became thoroughly convinced of the
inhabitability of the country, and it is no wonder that his condemnation
was so sweeping and hasty. He wrote on June the 21st:--
"The farther we proceed westerly, the more convinced I am that for all
the practical purposes of civilised man the interior of this country
westward of a certain meridian is uninhabitable, deprived as it is of
wood, water and grass."
Unfortunately for his fame, he then relinquished all thoughts and hopes
of a southward course; for had he pushed on, posterity would have hailed
his memory as the discoverer of the Murrumbidgee. But Fate decided
otherwise, and dejected and baffled, he turned to follow the Peel Range
north, making for the part he had left, where at least he was sure of a
supply of water. The expedition suddenly came upon the river again on the
23rd of June, and hoping to find that it had modified its nature, they
commenced to run it down again. The 7th of July they were forced to halt
once more, when Oxley gave up all idea of tracing the Lachlan. He began
his return journey, making this last desponding entry:--
"It is with infinite regret and pain that I was forced to come to the
conclusion that the interior of this vast country is a marsh and
uninhabitable...There is a dreary uniformity in the barren desolateness
of this country which wearies one more than I am able to express. One
tree, one soil, one water, and one description of bird, fish, or animal
prevails alike for ten miles and for one hundred. A variety of
wretchedness is at all times preferable to one unvarying cause of pain or
distress."
[Illustration. The Lachlan River at the point where Oxley left it on the
4th August, 1818, and struck North-East to gain the Macquarie River and
follow that river up to Bathurst. Photo by the Reverend J.M. Curran.]
On the 4th of August, the leader, knowing the repellant nature of the
river and its swamps and morasses that lay ahead of their returning
footsteps, determined to quit the Lachlan altogether, and steering a
northern course, to abandon the low country, reach the Macquarie River
and follow it up to the settlement at Bathurst.
The boats having been long since abandoned, it was necessary to build a
raft of pine-logs wherewith to transport the baggage over the stream.
They crossed in safety, and we can imagine that it was with no feelings
of regret that they finally lost sight of the stream that had so
persistently baffled them in all their attempts to traverse its banks.
For some days they had to struggle against the many obstacles of a new
and untrodden land, but they at last emerged on to the Macquarie country,
which made a pleasant and welcome contrast with the detested Lachlan.
It may be thought that too much stress has been laid upon Oxley's opinion
of the Lachlan, but it was this pessimistic report that dominated the
public mind for many years in its speculations as to the character of the
interior.
To Oxley himself, the first glimpse of the Macquarie came like a ray of
sunshine on his harassed feelings. Was he not to reap some reward for his
heroic efforts along the Lachlan, to enjoy the realisation of some of his
ambition as geographical discoverer? The Macquarie seemed a favourable
subject for the exercise of his talents. Would it not lead him westward
to the conquest of that mysterious inland country which had hitherto
guarded its secrets with an invincible obstinacy? Poor Oxley, who can
help rejoicing with him in his short-lived joy? Without knowing it, he
was the first of a long line of brave spirits who were doomed to lose
health and life in carving their way into the heart of Australia.
As they returned homeward up the bank of the Macquarie, the river seemed
to him to glitter with the bright promise of a crown of success. For
almost the first time the entry in his journal has a cheery ring of
hope:--
"Nothing can afford a stronger contrast than the two rivers -- Lachlan
and Macquarie -- different in their habits, their appearance, and the
source from which they derive their waters, but, above all, differing in
the country bordering on them; the one constantly receiving great
accession of water from four streams, and as liberally rendering fertile
a great extent of country, whilst the other, from its source to its
termination is constantly diffusing and diminishing the water it
originally receives over low and barren deserts, creating only wet flats
and uninhabitable morasses, and during its protracted and sinuous course
is never indebted to a single tributary stream."
3.3. THE LIVERPOOL PLAINS.
The disappointment occasioned by Oxley's return to Bathurst and his
failure to trace the course of the Lachlan was in part atoned for by the
high opinion he had formed of the Macquarie. A second expedition was
planned, and the command again offered to the Surveyor-General.
Evans was again second, and Dr. Harris, a very able man, accompanied the
party as a volunteer. Charles Fraser was botanist, but Allan Cunningham
did not go. The expedition was on a slightly larger scale, there being,
besides those already mentioned, twelve ordinary members, with eighteen
horses and provisions for twenty-four weeks. A depot was formed at
Wellington Valley, and men sent ahead to build two boats.
On June 6th, the start was made from the depot, and for the first 125
miles no obstacles nor impediments were met with. Elated by this, Oxley
sent two men back to Bathurst, in accordance with instructions, bearing a
favourable despatch to Governor Macquarie. But Fate was again deriding
the unfortunate explorer. No sooner had the two parties separated, one
with well-grounded hopes of their ultimate success, the other bearing
back tidings of these confident hopes, than doubt and distrust entered
into the mind of the leader. Twenty-four hours after the departure of the
messengers, Oxley wrote in his journal:--
"For four or five miles there was no material change in the general
appearance of the country from what it had been on the preceding days,
but for the last six miles the land was considerably lower, interspersed
with plains clear of timber and dry. On the banks it was still lower, and
in many places it was evident that the river-floods swept over them,
although this did not appear to be universally the case...These
unfavourable appearances threw a damp upon our hopes, and we feared that
our anticipations had been too sanguine."
And still, as Oxley went on, he found the country getting flatter and
more liable to inundation, until at last, with a heart nearly as low as
the country, he found himself almost hemmed in by water. In fact, it was
necessary to retrace steps in order to find a place where they could
encamp with safety. Upon this emergency, Oxley held a consultation with
Evans and Harris, and it was decided to send the baggage and horses back
to a small and safe elevation that stood some fifteen miles higher up the
river, thus making a subsidiary depot camp. Oxley himself, with four
volunteers in the largest of the two boats, would take a month's
provisions and follow the stream as long as there was enough water to
float their craft. Meanwhile, Evans, during Oxley's absence, was to make
an excursion to the north-east, and return by a more northerly route,
this being the direction the party intended to take, should the river
fail them as the Lachlan had done on the previous journey.
It was a wet and stormy day on which Oxley started on the river voyage.
For about twenty miles there was, as Oxley expresses it, "no country."
The main channels being in an overflow state, the flat country which
surrounded them could be recognised only by the timber growing on the
banks. The clear spaces whereon no trees grew were now covered with
reeds, which stood at the height of six or seven feet above the surface.
That night they took refuge on a piece of land which was so nearly
submerged that there was scarcely enough space on which to kindle a fire.
In the morning the violence of the storm had somewhat abated, and as soon
as the grey light was strong enough for them to recognise their way, they
resumed their dreary journey.
Oxley still contrived to keep to what he took to be the main channel,
although, as it now pursued its course amid a dense thicket of reeds, it
was becoming more difficult with every succeeding mile. Oxley's
seamanship, however, stood him in good stead, and although fallen logs
now began to obstruct their passage, they kept doggedly on for another
twenty miles. There was no diminution in the volume of the current that
was now bearing them onward, and Oxley felt confident that he was
approaching that hidden lake, wherein the inland waters mingled their
streams, and of whose existence he thought he had now every reason to
rest assured. Just as he was buoying his spirits up with these hopes,
dreaming that in future he would be able proudly to say,
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea,
the river eluded all further pursuit by spreading out in every direction
amongst the ocean of reeds that surrounded them.
Wounded to the heart at this unlooked-for disappointment, Oxley, after
vainly seeking for some clue or indication by which he could continue the
search, had to 'bout ship and return to the camp of the night before. He
says:--
"There was no channel whatever amongst these reeds, and the depth varied
from five to three feet."
Although he was still convinced that the "long sought-for Australian Sea"
existed, he recognised the futility of continuing this search to the
westward, in which direction some malignant genius seemed ever to persist
in thwarting him; and so he regained the shelter of the depot at Mount
Harris, with another tale of frustrated hopes.
Evans, on his return from his scouting expedition to the north and
north-east, had a more cheerful story to tell. The weather had been wet
throughout, and the impassable nature of the country occasioned thereby
had hampered him greatly; nevertheless he had struggled across the worst
of the flat country, and in the north-east had come to a new river, which
he named the Castlereagh. He was absent ten days, and on his return Oxley
determined to abandon the Macquarie, which had proved even more deceptive
and elusive than the Lachlan, and to strike out for the higher lands
which Evans reported having seen.
He left Mount Harris on July 20th, first burying a bottle there
containing a written scheme of his intended movements, and some silver
coin. Ten years afterwards, Captain Sturt made an ineffectual search for
this bottle. Oxley had also buried a bottle at the point of his departure
from the Lachlan. Mitchell search for it without success, and learned
afterwards that it had been broken by the blacks.
On July 27th, the party reached the bank of the Castlereagh, after
fighting their way through bog, quagmire, and all the difficulties common
to virgin country during continued wet weather. As the direction they
were steering was towards a range seen by Evans, and named Arbuthnot
Range, their march was again interrupted by finding the new-found river
this time running bank-high, having evidently risen immediately after
Evans had crossed it on his return journey. Here, perforce, they had to
stay until the water subsided, and it was not until August 2nd that the
river had fallen enough to allow them to cross. The ground was still
soaked and boggy, and the horses having had to carry increased pack-loads
since the abandonment of the boats, the party suffered great toil and
hardship in their efforts to gain Arbuthnot Range. The Range was reached,
however, and rounding one end of it by skirting the base of a prominent
hill which they named Mount Exmouth, the harassed explorers at last
emerged upon splendid pastoral country.
As Oxley, from a commanding position, surveyed the magnificent scene
spread out beneath him -- gentle hills separating smiling valleys, which
in their turn merged into undulating plains all ripe for settlement -- he
must have felt that Fate had at length relented, and granted him a
measure of reward as the discoverer of this beautiful land. He called the
locality Liverpool Plains, and the name has long been synonymous with
pastoral prosperity. Their journey to the eastward, which carried them
through the heart of this rich and highly-favoured country, was now less
arduous; and though the ground was still wet from the late soaking rains,
the sun shone cheerily overhead, and the horses, revelling in the
abundant rich grass and succulent herbage, began to recover their
strength. On September 2nd, they came to a river, which Oxley named the
Peel; and here the expedition narrowly escaped the shadow of a fatality,
one man being nearly drowned whilst crossing. After leaving the Peel,
Oxley still continued easterly, traversing splendid open grazing country.
He was now approaching the dividing water-shed of the Main Range, to the
northward of that portion of it which is known at the present day as the
Liverpool Range. Here the deep glens and gullies with which the seaward
front is serrated, began to interfere seriously with the direct course of
travel, and at the heads of many of them there were cataracts and
waterfalls which compelled the wanderers to turn away to the south; and
on one occasion to revert almost to the west. One of these striking
natural features received the name of Becket's Cataract, and another was
christened Bathurst's Falls. Once again tempests and storms beset them,
and this wild weather found them wandering amongst the steep ravines and
dizzy descents of the mountainous range, seeking a way leading to the
lowlands.
It was on September 23rd that Oxley and Evans, while searching for a
practicable route, climbed a tall peak, and from the summit caught a
glimpse of the sea. It seems to have greatly impressed Oxley, and he
writes in his journal of his emotions on the occasion:--
"Bilboa's ecstacy at the first sight of the South Sea could not have been
greater than ours when, on gaining the summit of this mountain, we beheld
Old Ocean at our feet. It inspired us with new life; every difficulty
vanished, and in imagination we were already home."
The descent was attended with many perils: Oxley says that at one period
he would willingly have compromised for the loss of one-third of the
horses to ensure the safety of the remainder. But the men with him were
tried and steady, and the thick tufts of grass and the loose soil
afforded them help in securing a surer footing, of every chance of
availing themselves of which the men skilfully took advantage, so that
both men and horses reached the foot of the mountain -- now called Mount
Seaview -- without mishap.
They had reached the head of a river running into the Pacific, and
proceeded to follow its course down with more or less difficulty until
they reached the mouth, when Oxley, judging the entrance to be navigable,
named it Port Macquarie, though one should imagine that he had become
tired of that name. The river was named the Hastings.
On October 12th, a toilsome march commenced, following the shore to the
southward. The wearisome interruptions of the many inlets and saltwater
creeks greatly fatigued and distressed his men. But at last they came
upon a boat, half-buried in the sand, which had been lost some time
before from a Hawkesbury coaster. This they cleaned and patched, and
carried with them, utilising it during the latter stages of this weary
journey to facilitate the passage of the many saltwater creeks and
channels that impeded their progress. It is owing to the possession of
this derelict boat that Oxley crossed the mouth of the Manning without
identifying it as a river. The blacks now harassed them greatly, and it
was during one of the attacks made upon the party that one of the men,
named William Black, was dangerously wounded, being speared through the
back and the lower part of the body. The care and conveyance of this
invalided man was now added to Oxley's other anxieties, and it was with
feelings of great satisfaction that on November 1st they caught sight of
the rude buildings of Port Stephens. Through much hardship and privations
he had brought his party back without loss.
Oxley sent Evans on to Newcastle with despatches to the governor, in
which he alluded to his sanguine anticipations at the time he had sent in
his last report, and their almost immediate collapse. But the discovery
of Liverpool Plains compensated in some degree for the disappointment
caused by the renewed failure that had attended Oxley's efforts to trace
an inland river.
In the following year, 1819, the Lady Nelson, with the Surveyor-General
on board, visited the newly found Port Macquarie and the Hastings River,
to survey the entrance; in which task he was assisted by Lieutenant P.P.
King in the Mermaid. On his return to Port Jackson, in the same year, he
made a short excursion to Jarvis Bay with Surveyor Meehan, when they were
accompanied by the explorer who was to win fame as Hamilton Hume. Oxley
returned by boat, his companions overland.
3.4. THE BRISBANE RIVER.
It was in October, 1823, that Oxley left Sydney on the expedition that
resulted in the finding of the Brisbane River, and the foundation of the
settlement at Moreton Bay. He was despatched on a mission to examine
certain openings on the east coast, and report on the suitability of them
as sites for penal establishments. Moreton Bay, Port Curtis, and Port
Bowen were selected; and Oxley left in the colonial cutter Mermaid, with
Uniacke and Stirling as assistants.
As the cutter went up the coast, she called at Port Macquarie, and Oxley
had the pleasure of noting the rapid growth of the settlement that had
been built upon his recommendation. Further along the coast, Oxley
discovered and named the Tweed River. The Mermaid reached Port Curtis on
the 6th of November, and cast anchor for some time, during which Oxley
made a careful examination of the locality, his opinion of it as a site
for a settlement being decidedly unfavourable. He however discovered and
named the Boyne River.
It being considered too late in the season to proceed and examine Port
Bowen, the Mermaid went south again, and entering Moreton Bay, anchored
off the river that appeared to Flinders to take its source in the Glass
House Peaks, and which he had called the Pumice Stone River.
They had scarcely anchored when several natives were seen at a distance,
evidently attracted by their arrival, and on examining them with the
telescope, Uniacke was struck with the appearance of one of a much
lighter colour than that of his companions. The next day Oxley landed and
discovered that the man they had noticed was in reality a castaway white
man of the name of Pamphlet. He told a singular tale.
He had left Sydney in an open boat with three others, intending to go to
the Five Islands and bring back cedar. A terrible gale arose, and they
were blown out to sea and quite out of their reckoning, Pamphlet being
under the impression that they had come ashore south of Port Jackson.
They had suffered fearful hardships in the open boat, being at one time,
he averred, twenty-one days without water, during which time one man died
of thirst. The boat was at last cast up on an island in the bay (Moreton
Island) where they had joined the blacks, and lived amongst them ever
since, a matter of seven months. The other survivors were named Finnegan
and Parsons. Pamphlet informed Oxley that not long before the Mermaid
arrived, the three of them had started to try and reach Sydney overland,
but when they had got about fifty miles, he had turned back and the next
day had been rejoined by Finnegan, who stated that he had quarrelled with
Parsons. The latter was never heard of again.
Finnegan put in an appearance the next day, and Oxley naturally took the
opportunity to question them as to the knowledge they had gained of the
surrounding country during their enforced stay in it. On one important
point both of them were confident, and this was that, in the southern
portion of the bay, a large river was to be found which appeared
navigable, having a strong current.
Taking Finnegan with them, Oxley and Stirling started in the whaleboat
the following morning to verify this information. They found the river
and pulled up it about fifty miles. Oxley was greatly pleased with such a
discovery, and landing, ascended a hill which he named Termination Hill.
From the top he obtained a view over a wide extent of country, through
which he was able to trace the river for a long distance. Strangely
enough, the hasty glimpse he thus caught of a new and untrodden part of
Australia seemed to confirm his fixed belief in the final destination of
the Lachlan and the Macquarie as an inland sea.
"The nature of the country and a consideration of all the circumstances
connected with the appearances of the river, justify me in entertaining a
strong belief that the source of the river will not be found in
mountainous country, but rather that it flows from some lake, which will
prove to be the receptacle of those inland streams crossed by me during
an expedition of discovery in 1818."
Oxley named the river the Brisbane, and, taking aboard the two rescued
men, the Mermaid set sail for Port Jackson, where she arrived on December
13th. This ended the chapter of Oxley's discoveries in the field of
active exploration.
CHAPTER 4. HAMILTON HUME.
[Illustration. Hamilton Hume, in his later life.]
[Map. Hume and Hovell's Route 1824; Sturt's Route, 1829 and 1830; Major
Mitchell's Route 1836.]
4.1. EARLY ACHIEVEMENTS.
Hamilton Hume was the son of the Reverend Andrew Hume, who came to the
colony with his wife in the transport Lady Juliana, and held an
appointment in the Commissariat Department. Hamilton was born in
Parramatta in the year 1797, on the 18th of June. He seems to have been
specially marked out by Nature for prominence as an explorer, for, from
his earliest boyhood he was fond of rambling through the bush, and his
father encouraged him in his desire for a free country life and his love
of adventure. School facilities were lacking, but fortunately his mother
attended to his education and saw to it that he did not grow up destitute
of that instruction common to youth of those times and of his standing.
At the age of seventeen he made his initial effort at exploration in the
country around Berrima, in company with his brother Kennedy and a black
boy. They were successful in their endeavours, and found some good
pastoral country. In the following year, encouraged by their success, the
brothers made another excursion. In 1816, a Mr. Throsby bought some of
the land that young Kennedy and Hamilton had found; and their father sent
them out with him to show him the country he had purchased. John Oxley,
too, held a farm in the Illawarra district, and the Surveyor-General, who
must have heard of Hamilton's repute for good bushmanship, engaged him to
go out with his overseer and guide the men on to the locality. Governor
Macquarie also seems to have had his attention drawn to the same
conspicuous quality, for he sent young Hume out with Meehan, a surveyor,
and Throsby to examine the country about the Shoalhaven River. On the
way, however, Throsby disagreed with Meehan about the course they should
adopt, and, taking a black boy with him, left his companions and made the
best of his way to Port Jervis. Meehan and Hume carried out the work as
originally decided on, and then forced their way up the range, which had
now seemingly been deprived of a great many of its original terrors by
the hardy pioneers of the coast. On the highlands they discovered and
named Lake George, a freshwater lake, and a smaller one which they called
Lake Bathurst, both, strange to say, seemingly isolated.
Here we may remark on the tenacity with which the Murrumbidgee River long
eluded the eye of the white man. It is scarcely probable that Meehan and
Hume, who on this occasion were within comparatively easy reach of the
head waters, could have seen a new inland river at that time without
mentioning the fact, but there is no record traceable anywhere as to the
date of its discovery, or the name of its finder. When in 1823 Captain
Currie and Major Ovens were led along its bank on to the beautiful
Maneroo country by Joseph Wild, the stream was then familiar to the early
settlers and called the Morumbidgee. Even in 1821, when Hume found the
Yass Plains, almost on its bank, he makes no special mention of the
river. From all this we may deduce the extremely probable fact that the
position of the river was shown to some stockrider by a native, who also
confided the aboriginal name, and so it gradually worked the knowledge of
its identity into general belief. This theory is the more feasible as the
river has retained its native name. If a white man of any known position
had made the discovery, it would at once have received the name of some
person holding official sway. But this is altogether a purely
geographical digression.
It was while on this expedition that Hume found the Goulburn Plains. On
another occasion he went with Alexander Berry, a noted south-coast
pioneer, up the Shoalhaven River, and accompanied the party when they
landed and conducted different excursions. By the time he reached
manhood, Hume was justly classed amongst the finest bushmen in the
colony. In his after career when he led the famous expedition to the
south coast, and again, when as Sturt's right hand he accompanied that
explorer on the notable expedition that solved the mystery of the outflow
of the inland rivers and gave to settled Australia the mighty Darling, he
fully proved his right to the title.
4.2. DISCOVERY OF THE HUME OR MURRAY.
It is perhaps by his fame as leader of the party that crossed from Lake
George to the Southern Ocean that Hume's name is best remembered. At that
time especially it aroused anew the bright hopes for the future of the
interior that Oxley's gloomy prognostications had done so much to
depress. The Surveyor-General having been unable to determine the
question as to whether any large river entered the sea between Cape Otway
and Spencer's Gulf, a somewhat hazardous idea entered the head of the
then Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, to land a party of convicts near
Wilson's Promontory, and induce them by the offer of a free pardon and a
grant of land to find their way back to Sydney overland. It was further
proposed that an experienced bushman should be put in charge of them. The
flattering offer of this responsible, if somewhat precarious position,
was made to young Hamilton Hume who, on mature consideration declined it.
He offered, however, to conduct a party from Lake George to Western Port
if the Government would provide the necessary assistance. This offer the
authorities accepted, but they forgot the essential condition of
furnishing assistance. Naturally, much delay and vexation were caused by
this display of official ineptitude. At this juncture a retired coasting
skipper, Captain William Hilton Hovell, made an offer to join the party,
and find half the necessary cattle and horses. This offer aroused the
Government to some sense of its responsibility, and it agreed to do
something in the matter. This "something" amounted to six pack-saddles
and gear, one tent of Parramatta cloth, two tarpaulins, a suit of slop
clothes a-piece for the men, and an order to Hume to select 1,200 acres
of land for himself. In addition, the Government generously granted the
explorers two skeleton charts upon which to trace the route of their
journey, some bush utensils, and promised a cash payment for the hire of
the cattle should an important discovery be made. This cash payment was
refused on their return, although one would have thought that the
discovery of the Hume (Murray) should surely take rank as an important
discovery. Hume also stated that he had much difficulty in obtaining
tickets-of-leave for the men, and the confirmation of his own order to
select land for himself.
Each of the leaders brought with him three men, so that the strength of
the party was eight all told. Their outfit of animals consisted of five
bullocks and three horses, and they had two carts with them.
Hovell was born at Yarmouth on the 26th of April, 1786. He arrived in
Sydney in 1813, but after being engaged in the coasting trade with
occasional trips to New Zealand, he had relinquished his career as a
sailor and had settled at Narellan, New South Wales. After his exploring
expedition with Hume, he settled down at Goulburn, and he died at Sydney
in 1876.
On the 14th of October, 1824, Hume and Hovell left Lake George. Reaching
the Murrumbidgee, they found that river flooded, and after waiting three
days for the water to fall, they crossed it borne on the body of one of
their carts, with the wheels detached, and with the aid of the tarpaulin,
rigged like a punt. South of the Murrumbidgee the country was broken and
difficult to traverse, but it was well grassed and admirably adapted for
grazing purposes. As it became too rough for the passage of their carts,
these were abandoned, and the baggage and rations were packed on the
bullocks for the remainder of their journey.
After following the course of the Murrumbidgee for some days, the
travellers turned from its bank and pursued a south-westerly direction,
which led them through hills and valleys richly grassed and plenteously
endowed with running streams. On the 8th of November they beheld a sight
rarely witnessed before by white men in Australia. Ascending a range in
order to obtain a view of the country ahead of them, they suddenly found
themselves confronted with snow-capped mountains. There, under the
brilliant sun of an Australian summer's day, rose the white crests of
lofty peaks that might have found fitting surroundings amidst the
chilling splendours of some far southern clime, robed as they were for
nearly one-fourth of their height in glistening snow.
Skirting this range, which received the name of the Australian Alps, the
explorers, after wandering for eight days across its many spurs, came
upon a fine, flowing river, which Hume named after his father, the Hume.
This river was destined to be re-named the Murray, when its course was
eventually followed to the ocean.*
*[Footnote.] See Chapter 6.
There being no safe ford, a makeshift boat was constructed with the aid
of the serviceable tarpaulin, and the Hume was crossed, close to the site
of the present town of Albury. Still passing through good pastoral land,
watered by numerous creeks, they crossed a river which was named the
Ovens, and on the 3rd of December they came to another, named by them the
Hovell, but now called the Goulburn; and on the 16th of December they
reached their goal, the shore of the Southern Ocean, at the spot where
Geelong now stands.
This expedition had a great and immediate influence on the extension of
Australian settlement. Within a few years after the chief surveyor had
characterised the western interior, beyond a certain limit, as unfitted
for human habitation, and had expressed his opinion that the monotonous
flats across which he vainly looked for any elevation extended to the
sea-coast, snowy mountains, feeding the head tributaries of perennial
rivers had been discovered to the southward of his track.
Hume was exceptionally fitted for the work of exploration at this
particular juncture in colonial history. Born and reared in the land, he
was well competent to judge justly of its merits and demerits; his
opinion was not likely to be tainted by the prejudices formed and
nourished in other and different climes. The history of Australian
exploration was then a statement of hasty conclusions, formed perhaps
under certain climatic circumstances to be falsified on a subsequent
visit when the conditions were radically different. In Hume's case, there
was no ill-founded conclusion of the availability of the
freshly-discovered district. The journey just recorded at once added to
the British Colonial Empire millions of acres of arable land watered by
never-failing rivers, with a climate and altitude calculated to foster
the growth of almost every species of temperate fruit or grain.
It is to be regretted that the narration of an expedition fraught with so
much benefit to the young colony, and executed with so much courage,
endurance, and facility of resource should be marred by any discordant
note. But friendly and genial relations were endangered by the presence
of two independent leaders. Divided authority here, as it nearly always
does, caused petty and undignified squabbles, which were in later days
elaborated into unseemly paper conflict. It is painful if somewhat
amusing to read of the acrid disputes as to the course, under the very
shadow of the majestic Australian Alps whose solitude had only then been
first disturbed by white men; and how, on agreeing to separate and divide
the outfit, it was proposed to cut the only tent in two, and how the one
frying-pan was broken by both men pulling at it. Thomas Boyd, who was the
only survivor of the party in 1883, and was then eighty-six years old,
signed a document assigning to Hume the full credit of conducting the
expedition to safety. Boyd was one of the most active members of the
expedition, always to the front when there was any trying work to be
done. He was the first white man to cross the Hume River, swimming over
with the end of a line in his teeth.
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.
[Illustration. 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.
[Illustration. Memorial to Allan Cunningham, Botanical Gardens, Sydney.]
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.
[Illustration. The Darling River, at Sturt's first view point. Photo by
the Reverend J. Milne Curran.]
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:--
[Illustration. Junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers.]
"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.
[Illustration. 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.
[Illustration. A Chief of the Bogan River Tribe. Photo by the Reverend
J.M. Curran.]
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.
[Illustration. 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.
Dr. Leichhardt appears to have been a man whose character, to judge from
his short career, was largely composed of contradictions and
inconsistencies. Eager for personal distinction, with high and noble
aims, he yet lacked that ready sympathy and feeling of comradeship that
attract men. Leichhardt's followers never desired to accompany him on a
second expedition. Yet strange to say, he was capable of inspiring firm
friendship in such men as William Nicholson and Lieutenant Robert Lynd.
When he left on his first exploring expedition, on which he was
successful owing to the luck of the novice, people generally predicted --
and with much reason -- that he would fail. But when he set out on his
second and disastrous journey, universally applauded and with his name on
everybody's lips, it was never doubted but that he would succeed.
[Map. Leichhardt's Route 1844 and 1845, Mitchell's Route 1845 and 1846,
and Kennedy's Route 1847 and 1848]
On his first expedition he was insufficiently equipped, had but
inexperienced men with him, and was a bad bushman himself. In fact the
journal of the trip reads to a man accustomed to bush life like the fable
of The Babes in the Wood; yet he managed to blunder through. On his
second expedition he was amply provided, and most of his companions were
experienced men, but it proved a miserable fiasco.
His great confidence in himself led him to ignore or undervalue the fact,
patent to others, that he was no bushman either by instinct or training.
And he seemed to prefer for companions men like himself, who could not
detect this failing, as is evident from a letter written by him to W.
Hull, of Melbourne, with reference to a young man who was anxious to join
his party. In this letter he enumerates the qualities that he considers
necessary in a follower:--
"Activity, good humour, sound moral principle, elasticity of mind and
body, and perfect willingness to obey my orders, even though given
harshly...I have been extremely unfortunate in the choice of my former
companions."
The last remark is an unworthy one, and of course applies to the
companions of his second expedition. He does not include a knowledge of
open-air life amongst his qualifications, nor the needful bushmanship;
and apparently in Leichhardt's opinion, a useless man of good moral
principle would be as acceptable to an explorer as a good bushman of
doubtful morality. It causes one to inquire whether the devoted men who
toiled for Sturt, private soldiers and prisoners of the Crown, were men
of sound moral principle? This extract affords an insight into
Leichhardt's failures. He wanted only those men who would blindly and
ignorantly obey and believe in him. For a man of Leichhardt's
temperament, such men were not to be found: he had missed the fairy gift
at birth -- all the essentials of good leadership.
Stuart Russell, in his Genesis of Queensland, cites his shrewd old
stockman's opinion of Dr. Leichhardt, as he was just before his first
trip. The station from which Leichhardt started on that occasion was near
Russell's, so that the man spoke from personal knowledge: "It's my belief
that if Dr. Leichhardt do it at all, 'twill be more by good luck than
management. Why, sir, he hasn't got the knack of some of us; why it comes
like mother's milk to some. I can't tell how or why, but it does. Mark my
words, sir, Dr. Leichhardt hasn't got it in him, and never will have."
Two invaluable qualities in an explorer, apart from his scientific
attainments, Leichhardt possessed. These were courage and determination;
necessary no doubt, but not sufficient in themselves to carry through an
expedition to success. He lacked tact, and was deficient in practical
knowledge of the bush, and especially in what is known as bushmanship.
One fixed idea of his was, that in dry country if one can only keep on
far enough one is bound to come to water: a theory plausible enough if it
could be carried out to its logical conclusion; but the application of
which often involves a physical impossibility. And it must be taken into
consideration that Leichhardt had never travelled in the dry country of
the interior, but that what small experience he possessed had been gained
on the fairly well-watered coast. He asserts in his journal that cattle
and horses trust entirely to the sense of vision for finding water, and
not to the sense of smell. The exact reverse is of course the case.
The character of the lost explorer will thus be seen to have militated
strongly against his success when he came to be pitted against the -- to
him -- unknown dangers of a dry season in the far interior. But his fatal
self-confidence led him to challenge the desert, thinking that he must
succeed where better men had been denied even the hope of success. When
his last expedition comes to be reviewed, a more detailed discussion of
the probabilities of a successful issue to it will be made. Poor
Leichhardt, with all his moods and caprices, it would have been strange
if he had not shown some appreciation of humour. Let us quote his
description of his sudden and unexpected arrival in Sydney, after the
Port Essington expedition.
"We did come to Sydney, it was quite dark; we did go ashore, and then I
thought to see my dear friend Lynd. So I went up George Street to the
barracks. And then I went to his quarters to his window. He was dressing
himself; I did put in my head; he did jump out of the other window and I
stood there wondering. Soon many people did come round, and did look, Oh
so timid. I did not know all. And there was such a greeting. I was dead,
and was alive again. I was lost, and was found."
But in thus reviewing Leichhardt's aptitude -- or rather inaptitude --
for the work, and commenting upon his shortcomings, we must do him the
fullest justice by paying homage to the sincerity of his belief in
himself and his mission. In that belief he was honestly loyal. His
conception of his duty was of the highest, and in its interest he would,
and did, make every sacrifice in his power. If some prescient tongue
could have told Leichhardt that the end of his quest would be an unknown
death, he would have accepted the fate without a murmur, provided his
death benefited geographical discovery.
As the man of science in a party under a capable leader, Leichhardt would
have achieved greater success than many men who have filled that
position; as the leader himself he was, of necessity, an absolute
failure.
Leichhardt arrived in New South Wales in 1842, and after some botanical
excursions about the Hunter River district, he travelled overland to
Moreton Bay, and there occupied himself with short expeditions in the
neighbourhood, pursuing his favourite study of physical science. When the
subject of the exploration of the north was mooted, he was desirous of
securing the position of naturalist, but the delay in forming the
projected expedition disappointed him, and he resolved to try and
organise a private one. In this he received very little encouragement. He
persevered, however, and eking out his own resources by means of private
contributions, both in money and stock, he managed to get a party
together. On the 1st of October, 1844, he left Jimbour station on the
Darling Downs, on the trip that was destined to make his name as an
explorer. His preparations were on a much smaller scale than Mitchell's.
Considering the importance of the undertaking, his party was absurdly
small. He had with him six white and two black men, seventeen horses,
sixteen head of cattle and four kangaroo dogs; and his supply of
provisions was equally meagre. His plan of starting from Moreton Bay to
Port Essington differed considerably from Mitchell's proposed journey to
the Gulf from Fort Bourke, but although longer and more roundabout, it
would be a safer route for his little party to adopt, as they would keep
to the comparatively well-watered coastal lands. Leaving the Condamine,
he crossed the northern watershed, and struck the head of one of the main
tributaries of the Fitzroy River, which he named the Dawson. Thence he
passed westward into a region of fine pastoral country, which he named
the Peak Downs. Here he named the minor waters of the Planet and the
Comet, and Zamia Creek. On the 10th of January, 1845, he found the
Mackenzie River, and thence crossed on to and named the Isaacs, a
tributary of the Fitzroy coming from the north. This river they followed
up till they crossed the watershed on to the head waters of the Suttor
River. They followed this stream down until it brought them to the
Burdekin, Leichhardt's most important discovery.
Up the valley of this river they travelled, until they reached the head,
where, at the Valley of Lagoons, they crossed the watershed on to the
waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Here, for some unknown reason,
Leichhardt went far too much to the north, which necessitated a long
detour around the south-eastern corner of the Gulf. It was while they
were retracing a southern course along the eastern shore of the Gulf that
the naturalist Gilbert met his fate. Up to this time they had been so
little troubled with the natives that they had ceased almost to think of
a possible hostile encounter with them. This fancied immunity was broken
in a most tragic manner on the night of the 28th of June, 1845. It was a
calm, quiet evening, and the party were peacefully encamped beside a
chain of shallow lagoons. The doctor was thinking out his plans for the
next few days, Gilbert was planting a few lilies he had gathered, as was
his nightly habit when any flowers were available. Roper and the others
were grouped around the fire warding off the attacks of the mosquitoes.
Suddenly about seven o'clock a shower of spears was thrown among the
unarmed men, and Gilbert was almost instantly killed, Roper and Calvert
being seriously wounded. The whites rushed for their guns, but
unfortunately not one weapon was ready capped, and it was some time
before any of them could be discharged, when a volley caused the blacks
to scamper off. It is most astonishing that the whole of the members of
the party were not cut down in one dreadful massacre.
The body of the murdered naturalist was buried at the fatal camp, but the
grave was left unmarked, and a large fire built and consumed above it to
hide all traces of it from the natives. The river where this sad mishap
occurred now bears the name of Gilbert.
From the scene of this tragedy, which ordinary precautions would have
avoided, the party proceeded around the southern shore of the Gulf,
keeping a short distance above tidal waters; but their progress was slow
and painful on account of the two wounded men. Most of Leichhardt's names
are still retained for the rivers of the Gulf which he crossed, the
Leichhardt itself being an exception. This river he mistook for the
Albert, so named by Captain Stokes during his marine survey of the north
coast. A.C. Gregory rectified the error in after years, and gave the
river the name of the lost explorer for whom he was then searching. With
fast-dwindling supplies, lagging footsteps, and depressed spirits, the
expedition travelled slowly on to the south-west corner of the Gulf
where, in crossing a large river, the Roper, four of the horses were
drowned in consequence of the boggy banks. This misfortune so limited
their means of carriage that Leichhardt had to sacrifice the whole of his
botanical collection. On the 17th of December, 1845, the worn-out
travellers, nearly destitute of everything, reached the settlement of
Victoria, at Port Essington, and the long journey of fourteen months was
over.
This expedition, successful as it was in opening up such a large area of
well-watered country, attracted universal attention both to the
gratifying economic results and to the hitherto untried leader. He was
enthusiastically welcomed back to Sydney, and dubbed by journalists the
prince of explorers. But what captivated public fancy was a certain halo
of romance that clung to the journey on account of the reported death of
Leichhardt, a report that gained general credence. His unexpected return
invested him with a romance which -- fortunately for his reputation --
the total and absolute disappearance of himself and company in 1848 has
but the more richly coloured. Enthusiastic poets gush forth in song, and
a more substantial reward was raised by public and private subscriptions
and shared among the expedition in due proportions.
Encouraged by these encomiums on his success, and perhaps a little
intoxicated by the general acclamation, Leichhardt now conceived the
ambitious idea of traversing the continent from the eastern to the
western shore; keeping as far as possible on the same parallel of
latitude. This was a bold project, coming as it did so soon after Sturt
had returned to Adelaide from his excursion into the interior with a
terrible tale of thirst and suffering. But this time the hero of the hour
experienced no difficulty in obtaining funds and other necessary aids.
The party, when organised, travelled from the Hunter River to the
Condamine, taking with them their outfit of mules, cattle, and goats.
When the expedition departed from Darling Downs, they numbered seven
white men and two natives, with 270 goats, 180 sheep, 40 bullocks, 15
horses, and 13 mules. There were besides an ample outfit and provisions
calculated to last the explorers on a two years' journey; for it was
estimated that the expedition would be absent from civilisation for that
time.
Instead of setting out westwards from the initial point in a direction
where Leichhardt could reasonably expect fair travelling country for some
distance, he proceeded along his old track north to the Mackenzie and
Isaacs Rivers. What induced him to adopt this course is uncertain. He
explained to one of his party that it was to verify some former
observations; or he may have had some dim notion that by keeping to the
tropical line he would gain some climatic assistance. Whatever the cause,
the result was disastrous. The wet season and monsoonal rains caught the
party amongst the sickly acacia scrubs of that region; and hemmed in by
mud and bog they lost their stock, consumed their provisions, and made no
progress. Henceforth the narrative is one of semi-starvation, varied by
gorging on the days when a beast was killed; and wrangles and quarrels,
in which the leader appeared in no amiable light. Medicine had been
omitted from the stores, and all the covering they had from the
torrential rains was provided by two miserable calico tents. The 6th day
of July found them back on Chauvel's station on the Condamine; a sad
contrast to the party which had aspired to cross the continent.
[Illustration. John Frederick Mann. Born 1819, died September 7th, 1907,
at Sydney. The last survivor of a Leichhardt expedition.]
The onus of this wretched failure Leichhardt tried to cast upon his
companions, upon whom he made many unjust aspersions. J.F. Mann, late of
the Survey Department of New South Wales, was one of the expedition, and
the last surviving member of any expedition connected with Leichhardt. He
wrote a booklet in which he vigorously defends his comrades and himself
against the unworthy slurs cast at them by Leichhardt. Amongst his papers
is a rough sketch from life of Leichhardt in bush costume.
On reaching the Condamine, Leichhardt was put into possession of the news
of Mitchell's return and of the discovery of the Barcoo. Being anxious to
examine the country lying between the upper Condamine and Mitchell's
latest track, he, in company with two or three of his late companions,
left Cecil Plains for that purpose; he went as far as the Balonne River,
crossed it and returned. This doubtless was in view of organising another
expedition, with which he evidently intended to start in another manner,
straight to the westward.
Still persisting and believing in his capability of leading an expedition
across the continent, and fearful that this ambitious project might be
forestalled, he now made strong and strenuous efforts to organise another
party. He succeeded at length, but the party was neither so well
provided, nor so large, nor composed of such capable men as the second.
In fact, very little is known of the members that composed it; the only
thing certain is that it was not at all adapted for the work that lay
before it. A few words of the Reverend W.W.B. Clarke, the well-known
geologist, have
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