Splendid horses and cattle of the finest breed had been brought out, but they wandered useless in the bush. For, till the country was surveyed, nothing could be done in the way of agriculture; and, even after the surveys were completed, owing to a regulation that those whose grants exceeded a square mile should be allowed the first choice, all the sections nearest to the town were obtained by officials and wealthy speculators, who had no intention of using them. Many of these persons held a district almost as large as an English county, and, therefore, the lands remaining for selection by farmers and small purchasers were generally far in the interior. The sections were pointed out on the maps, but the places themselves had never been trodden by a white man’s foot, and were held by tribes of hostile savages. Some, indeed, tried to settle upon these distant regions, but they were lonely and isolated, and many of them perished, either from disease and hunger, or by the spears of the natives. Yet there were very few who made any attempt at agriculture, and the costly ploughs and implements that had been imported lay rusting on the beach. The horses and cattle died off, the sheep that had been introduced at great expense were almost all killed through feeding on a poisonous plant, which grew in patches over the country; and the men themselves were forced to loiter at Perth, consuming their provisions and chafing at their ruinous inaction.

4. Mr. Peel.—There was one gentleman who had spent fifty thousand pounds in bringing with him to the colony everything that could be required for farming and sheep-breeding on a magnificent scale. He brought with him three hundred labourers; but the land was by no means so fertile as he had imagined, and he had scarcely commenced his farming operations when he found that his only escape from ruin was to enter, single-handed, on the self-dependent life of the ordinary settler.

5. Gloomy Prospects.—Matters grew worse and worse, and those of the disappointed colonists who had sufficient prudence to start before their means were all exhausted either returned to Europe or sought the other colonies, where several achieved success—notably the brothers Henty, who settled at Launceston and established at Portland Bay the whaling station already mentioned. The gloomy reports of those who reached England prevented any further accession of immigrants, and in 1835 it was rumoured, though erroneously, that the British Government intended to abandon the place.

In the following year (1836) the colony of South Australia was founded; and a great extent of territory previously marked as belonging to West Australia was assigned to the new settlement. These two colonies, during their early years, experienced trials and difficulties of the same kind; but while South Australia, in a short time, emerged to a career of brilliant prosperity through sturdy determination to make the land productive, West Australia for forty years never enjoyed more than a transitory gleam of success.

6. Introduction of Convicts.—This little improvement consisted of a message received from Earl Grey in 1848 asking the settlers if they were willing to accept convicts in their midst. The other colonies had refused them, but it was thought not unlikely that West Australia might be glad to get them. Opinions were divided as to the reply which ought to be given: while some were averse to the idea, others believed that the money sent out by the British Government to maintain the convicts and soldiers would originate a trade which might give to the colony new life and fresh prospects. These arguments prevailed, and in 1849 the first shipload of convicts arrived. From time to time new gangs were received, and the place began to be much more populous than before. The shopkeepers in Perth became rich, and the farmer squatters of the surrounding districts found a ready market for their produce. Yet this success was only partial; and there was nothing which might be said to constitute general prosperity. In the little town of Fremantle, the few and scattered houses had still a rural aspect, and the streets echoed to the sound of no commercial bustle. In Perth the main street was still a grassy walk, shaded by avenues of trees, and even in the business quarter the houses stood each in the midst of its spacious garden.

7. Evils of Convictism.—West Australia had now to suffer the consequences of having become a penal settlement. Many of the convicts, on being liberated, took up their abode in the colony; but their dispositions were seldom either amiable or virtuous, and from the vices of these men the whole population began to lose character in the eyes of other countries. A large number of the prisoners were no sooner liberated than they set off for the goldfields in the eastern colonies, which thus began to share in the evils of convictism. These colonies were not inclined to suffer long in this manner; and, to defend themselves, they refused admission to any person who came from West Australia, unless he could show that he had never been a convict. Thus the colony at Swan River was branded, and held to be contaminated; no free immigrants sought its shores, and many of its best inhabitants departed.

This stigma continued to rest on West Australia until the year 1868, when the transportation of criminals from Great Britain altogether ceased, and the colony no longer received its periodical supply of convicts. Since that time it has, in a great measure, retrieved its character; it is now doing what it can to attract free immigrants, and offers large tracts of pastoral land at low rentals, while the farming classes are attracted by free selection at only ten shillings an acre, with ten years in which to pay it. It has joined Perth to Albany by a good railway, and several branch railways have been constructed, as well as a large number of telegraph lines; and at Albany, the town on King George’s Sound, it has established a coaling depôt for the mail steamers on their way to Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. But West Australia is still what it was called twenty years ago, “the giant skeleton of a colony,” consisting of about forty thousand people, scattered over a hundred thousand square miles of territory, behind which stretches a vast region of unexplored wilderness. There is every indication, however, that its progress in the near future will be rapid. Up to 1870 it formed what was called a Crown colony: the people had no voice in their own government; their affairs were managed for them by the officers of the English Government. At that date, however, when transportation was abolished, the colony was promoted to the partial management of its own affairs, and the people began periodically to elect a Legislative Council. In 1890 it was still further promoted, being raised to the full dignity of an independent colony, having, like the other colonies of Australia, a Parliament of two Houses, with power to make and unmake its own laws as it pleases. Perth is now rapidly increasing, and the colony is on the eve of its palmy days.

CHAPTER XVI.

But the reports of both these travellers were subsequently found to be erroneous; for, in 1823, when Governor Brisbane sent the discoverer Oxley, in the Mermaid, to select a place for a new convict station in the northern district of New South Wales, Moreton Bay was found to receive the waters of a large and important river. His success was, at least in part, due to accident. Among the blacks, on the shores of the bay, was a naked man, who was seen to be white. This man was taken on board. He had sailed in an open boat from Sydney, with three others, about a year before, but had been driven by gales out to sea and far to the north. They had landed and had been well received by the blacks. The rest had started to walk along the shore to Sydney, but one man, named Pamphlett, had remained with the natives; and it was he who now was rescued by Oxley, to whom he gave the information that, when roving inland with the tribe among whom he was living, he had seen a fine river of fresh water. Under the guidance of Pamphlett, Oxley left his little vessel in the bay, and with a boat entered upon the broad current of the stream. Before sunset he had ascended about twenty miles, and had been delighted by the richness of the scenery and the magnificence of the timber. On the following day he proceeded thirty miles farther up, and throughout the whole distance found the stream to be broad and of sufficient depth to be navigable for vessels of considerable size. Oxley was justly proud of his discovery, and wished to penetrate still farther into the forests that lay beyond; but his boat’s crew had been so exhausted by their long row under a burning sun that he could go no farther, and found it necessary to turn and glide with the current down to his vessel, which he reached late on the fourth night. To the stream he had thus discovered he gave the name of the Brisbane River.

2. Convict Station.—On his return he recommended this district as a suitable position for the new convict station, and during the following year (1824) he was sent to form the settlement. With a small party, consisting of convicts and their guards, he landed at Redcliff, now known as Humpy Bong, a peninsula which juts out into Moreton Bay a few miles above the mouth of the Brisbane. Here the settlement remained for a few months, but afterwards it was moved twenty miles up the river to that pleasant bend which is now occupied by the city of Brisbane. Here, under Captain Logan, the first permanent commandant of the settlement, large stone barracks for the soldiers were erected, and lines of gaols and other buildings for the convicts. And in these for twelve or fourteen years the lonely community dwelt—about a thousand twice-convicted prisoners, and a party of soldiers and officials to keep them in order. No free person was allowed to approach within fifty miles of the settlement, unless with special permission, which was very sparingly granted. The place was a convict settlement of the harshest type; and stern were the measures of that relentless commandant, Captain Logan, who flogged and hanged the unfortunate people under his charge until he became hated with a deadly hatred. He was an active explorer, and did much to open up the interior country, till at length, on a trip in which he was accompanied only by some convicts, they glutted their vengeance by spearing him and battering his head with a native tomahawk.

3. The Squatters.—For thirteen years the settlement was not affected by anything that went on in that outside world from which it was so completely excluded. But in 1840 the onward progress of squatting enterprise brought free men with sheep and cattle close to Moreton Bay. That fine district, discovered by Allan Cunningham in 1827, and called by him the Liverpool Plains, had almost immediately attracted squatters, who by degrees filled up the whole of the available land, and those who were either new-comers, or who found their flocks increasing too fast for the size of their runs, were forced to move outward, and, as a rule, northward. It was about the year 1840 that the pioneers entered that fine tableland district called by Allan Cunningham, in 1829, the Darling Downs, and when the year 1844 was ended there were at least forty squatters over the Queensland borders, with nearly 200,000 sheep and 60,000 cattle, and with many hundreds of shepherds and stockmen to attend them.

4. A Free Settlement.—Whilst the squatters were gathering all round, a change took place at Brisbane itself. We have seen that about 1840 the English Government had resolved to discontinue transportation, except to Van Diemen’s Land. The word, therefore, went forth that Brisbane was no longer to be a place of exile for criminals. It was to be the home of free men and the capital of a new district. In 1841 Governor Sir George Gipps arrived from Sydney, and laid out the plan of what is now a handsome city. Blocks of land were offered for sale to free settlers, and eagerly bought. The Governor also laid out a little town, now called Ipswich, farther inland. Meanwhile the township of Drayton, and that which is now much larger, Toowoomba, began to gather round two wayside inns established for the convenience of travellers. Captain Wickham was sent up to assume the position of Superintendent of Moreton Bay, which thus became practically a new colony, just as Port Phillip was in the south, though both were then regarded as only districts of New South Wales.

The Government troopers showed little compunction in destroying scores of natives, and, strange to say, the most inhuman atrocities were committed by blacks, who were employed to act as troopers. On one occasion, after the murder of a white man by two blacks, a band of troopers, in the dead of night, stealthily surrounded the tribe to which the murderers belonged, whilst it was holding a corrobboree, and, at a given signal, fired a volley into the midst of the dancing crowd—a blind and ruthless revenge, from which, however, the two murderers escaped. On another occasion the shepherds and hutkeepers out on a lonely plain had begun to grow afraid of the troublesome tribes in the neighbourhood, and cunningly made them a present of flour, in which white arsenic had been mixed. Half a tribe might then have been seen writhing and howling in the agony of this frightful poison till death relieved them. On such occasions the black tribes took a terrible revenge when they could, and so the hatred of black for white and white for black became stronger and deadlier.

6. Separation.—In less than five years after the removal of convicts the district began to agitate for separation from New South Wales; and, in 1851, a petition was sent to the Queen, urging the right of Moreton Bay to receive the same concession as had, in that year, been made to Port Phillip. On this occasion their request was not granted, but, on being renewed about three years later, it met with a very favourable reception; and, in the following year, an Act was passed by the Imperial Parliament giving to the British Government power to constitute the new colony. Again, as in the case of Port Phillip, delays occurred; and, in 1856, a change of Ministry caused the matter to be almost forgotten. It was not until the year 1859 that the territory to the north of the twenty-ninth parallel of latitude was proclaimed a separate colony, under the title of Queensland.

7. Gold.—In 1858 it was reported that gold had been discovered far to the north, on the banks of the Fitzroy River, and in a short time many vessels arrived in Keppel Bay, their holds and decks crowded with men, who eagerly landed and hastened to Canoona, a place about sixty or seventy miles up the river. Ere long there were about fifteen thousand diggers on the scene; but it was soon discovered that the gold was confined to a very small area, and by no means plentiful; and those who had spent all their money in getting to the place were in a wretched plight. A large population had been hurriedly gathered in an isolated region, without provisions, or the possibility of obtaining them; their expectations of the goldfield had been disappointed, and for some time the Fitzroy River was one great scene of misery and starvation till the Governments of New South Wales and Victoria sent vessels to convey the unfortunate diggers away from the place. Some, however, in the extremity of the famine, had selected portions of the fertile land on the banks of the river, and had begun to cultivate them as farms. They were pleased with the district, and, having settled down on their land, founded what is now the thriving city of Rockhampton.

A great amount of success, however, attended a subsequent effort in 1867. The Government of Queensland offered rewards, varying from two hundred to a thousand pounds, for the discovery of paying goldfields. The result was that during the course of the next two or three years many districts were opened up to the miner. Towards the end of 1867 a man named Nash, who had been wandering in an idle way over the country, found an auriferous region of great extent at Gympie, about 130 miles from Brisbane. He concealed his discovery for a time, and set to work to collect as much of the gold as possible, before attracting others to the spot. In the course of a day or two he gathered several hundred pounds worth of gold, being, however, often disturbed in his operations by the approach of travellers on the adjacent road, when he had to crouch among the bushes, until the footsteps died away and he could again pursue his solitary task. After some time it seemed impossible to avoid discovery; and lest any one should forestall him in making known the district, he entered Maryborough, not far away, announced his discovery, and received the reward. A rush took place to the Gympie, which was found to be exceedingly rich, and it was not long before a nugget worth about four thousand pounds was met with close to the surface.

Far to the north, on the Palmer River, a tributary of the Mitchell, there have been discovered rich goldfields, where, in spite of the great heat and dangers from the blacks, there are crowds of diggers at work. Many thousands of Chinamen have settled down in the district, and to these the natives seem to have a special antipathy, as they spear them on every possible occasion.

But all the stories which Australia offers of gold-digging romance are eclipsed by that of the Mount Morgan Mine. Near Rockhampton, and in the midst of that very district to which the diggers had rushed in 1858, but in which they had starved through being unable to find gold, a young squatter bought from the Government of Queensland a selection of 640 acres. It was on a rocky hill, so barren that he considered it useless, and was glad to sell it for £640 to three brothers of the name of Morgan. These gentlemen were lucky enough to find out that the dirty grey rocks of which the hill was composed were very richly mixed with gold, so that twenty or thirty pounds worth of gold could be got by crushing and washing every cart-load of rock. They immediately set to work, and before long showed that they were the possessors of the richest gold mine in the world. A year or two later the hill was sold at a price equivalent to eight millions of pounds, and it is now reckoned that it contains gold to the value of at least double that sum. What a strange adventure for the man who owned it and reckoned it worth almost nothing!

8. Cotton.—Throughout most of the colony the climate is either tropical or semi-tropical, and it is therefore, in its more fertile parts, well suited to the growth of cotton and sugar. About the year 1861 the cultivation of the cotton plant was commenced on a small scale; but, although the plantations were found to thrive, yet the high rate of wages which prevailed in Queensland, and the low price of cotton in Europe, caused the first attempts to be very unprofitable.

Matters were changed, however, in 1863, for then a great civil war was raging in America; and as the people of the Southern States were prevented, by the long chain of blockading vessels stationed by the Northern States along their coasts, from sending their cotton to Europe, there was a great scarcity of cotton in England, and its price rose to be exceedingly high. This was a favourable opportunity for Queensland. The plantations were, of course, still as expensive as ever, but the handsome prices obtained for the cotton not only covered this great expense, but also left considerable profits. The cultivation of the sugar cane was introduced in 1865, and, after a few years had passed away, great fields of waving cane were to be seen in various parts of the country, growing ripe and juicy beneath the tropical sun.

9. Polynesian Labour.—The prices of cotton and sugar remained high for some years; but when the American Civil War was over they fell to their former rates, and the planters of Queensland found it necessary to obtain some cheaper substitute for their white labourers. At first it was proposed to bring over Hindoos from India, but nothing came of this idea; and afterwards, when Chinese were introduced, they were not found to give the satisfaction expected. But it happened that one of the planters, named Robert Towns, was the owner of a number of ships which traded to the South Sea Islands, and having persuaded a few of the islanders to cross to Queensland, he employed them on his sugar plantation. He took some little trouble in teaching them the work he wished them to do, and found that they soon became expert at it. As the remuneration they required was very small, they served admirably to supply the necessary cheap labour.

The practice of employing these South Sea Islanders, or “Kanakas,” as they were called, soon became general, and parts of Queensland had all the appearance of the American plantations, where crowds of dusky figures, decked in the brightest of colours, plied their labours with laughter and with song, among the tall cane brakes or the bursting pods of cotton. The “Kanakas” generally worked for a year or two in the colony, then, having received a bundle of goods—consisting of cloth, knives, hatchets, beads, and so forth, to the value of about £10—they were again conveyed to their palm-clad islands. A system of this kind was apt to give rise to abuses, and it was found that a few of the more unscrupulous planters, not content with the ordinary profits, stooped to the shameful meanness of cheating the poor islander out of his hard-earned reward. They hurried him on board a vessel, and sent after him a parcel containing a few shillings worth of property; then, when he reached his home, he found that all his toil and his years of absence from his friends had procured him only so much trash.

Happily, this was not of very frequent occurrence; but there was another abuse both common and glaring. As the plantations in Queensland increased, they required more labourers than were willing to leave their homes in the South Sea Islands; and, as the captains of vessels were paid by the planters a certain sum of money for every “Kanaka” they brought over, there was a strong temptation to carry off the natives by force, when, by other means, a sufficient number could not be obtained. There were frequent conflicts between the crews of labour vessels and the inhabitants of the islands. The white men burnt the native villages, and carried off crowds of men and women; while, in revenge, the islanders often surprised a vessel and massacred its crew; and in such cases the innocent suffered for the guilty. The sailors often had the baseness to disguise themselves as missionaries, in order the more easily to effect their purpose; and when the true missionaries, suspecting nothing, approached the natives on their errand of good will, they were speared or clubbed to death by the unfortunate islanders. But, as a rule, the “Kanakas” were themselves the sufferers; the English vessels pursued their frail canoes, ran them down, and sank them; then, while struggling in the sea, the men were seized and thrust into the hold, and the hatches were fastened down. When in this dastardly manner a sufficient number had been gathered together, and the dark interior of the ship was filled with a steaming mass of human beings densely huddled together, the captains set sail for Queensland, where they landed those of their living cargoes who had escaped the deadly pestilence which filth and confinement always engendered in such cases.

10. Polynesian Labourers’ Act.—These were the deeds of a few ruthless and disreputable seamen; but the people of Queensland, as a whole, had no sympathy with such barbarities, and in 1868 a law was passed to regulate the labour traffic. It enacted that no South Sea Islanders were to be brought into the colony unless the captain of the vessel could show a document, signed by a missionary or British consul, stating that they had left the islands of their own free will; Government agents were to accompany every vessel, in order to see that the “Kanakas” were well treated on the voyage; and, on leaving the colony, no labourer was to receive less than six pounds worth of goods for every year he had worked.

These regulations were of great use, but they were often evaded; for, by giving a present to the king of an island, the sailors could bribe him to force his people to express their willingness before the missionary. The trembling men were brought forward, and, under the fear of their chief’s revenge, declared their perfect readiness to sail. Sometimes the Government agents on board the vessels were bribed not to report the misdeeds of the sailors; and in the case of the Jason, on which the agent was too honest to be so bribed, he was chained below by the captain, on the pretence that he was mad. When the ship arrived in Queensland, the unfortunate man was found in a most miserable state of filth and starvation. For this offence the captain was arrested, tried, and imprisoned. Whatever regulations may be made, a traffic of this sort will occasionally have its dark and ugly features, yet it may be truly enough said that while the “Kanakas” have been of great service to Queensland, the colony has also been of service to them. The islanders are generally glad to be taken; they have better food and easier lives on the plantations than they have in their homes; they gather a trunkful of property such as passes for great wealth in the islands, and when they are sent home, after two years’ absence, to their palms and coral shores, it is in full costume, generally in excellent spirits, and always more or less civilised. Sometimes, poor fellows, they are stripped and plundered by their naked relatives, but at any rate they help, by what they have learnt, to improve the style of life in those native groves, so sunny but so full of superstition and barbarous rites.

11. Present State of the Colony.—In 1868 Sir George Bowen was sent to govern New Zealand, and Governor Blackall took charge of affairs in Queensland. He was a man of fine talents, and amiable character, and was greatly respected by the colonists; but he died not long after his arrival, and was succeeded by the Marquis of Normanby, who, in his turn, was succeeded, in 1874, by Mr. Cairns. Sir Arthur Kennedy, in 1877, Sir Anthony Musgrave, in 1883, Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, in 1888, and General Sir H. Wylie Norman bring the list of Governors to the present year (1894).

Queensland possesses magnificent resources, which have only recently been made known, and are now in process of development. Her exports of gold exceed two million pounds a year; she produces large quantities of tin, copper, silver, and other minerals. The wool clipped from her sheep exceeds one million four hundred thousand pounds in annual value; and her total exports, including cotton, sugar, and other tropical productions, amount to about six million pounds per annum. The population is now about half a million, and immigrants continue to arrive at the rate of about sixteen thousand a year. Though the youngest of the Australian colonies, Queensland now ranks fourth on the list, and appears to have a most promising future before her. Her cotton industry has almost vanished, and her sugar plantations have passed through troublous times, but there seem to be good hopes for them in the future. However, it will be in the raising of sheep and of cattle, as well as in gold-mining, that the colony will have to look for her most permanent resources. She has now nearly twenty million sheep and six million cattle, and sends wool, tallow, hides, and frozen meat to England, while she supplies prime bullocks for the Melbourne Market.

12. The Aborigines.—Australian history practically begins with the arrival of the white man, for before that time, though tribe fought with tribe and there were many doings of savage men, there is nothing that could be told as a general story. Each tribe of from twenty to a couple of hundred dusky forms wandered over the land, seeking animals to hunt and fresh water to drink. They were very thinly spread, not more than one person to ten square miles, yet every little tribe was at deadly feud with its neighbour.

The tribe wandered over the grassy and park-like lands, the men stalking ahead with spears and boomerang in hand; the women trudging behind loaded with babies, and utensils. At evening they camp and the men put up frail break-winds, consisting of a few branches and leafy tufts; behind this on the sheltered side a few leaves made a bed. Meantime the fire was lit close by, and soon a dozen little columns of blue smoke curl up among the trees. The opossum, or duck, or wallaby is soon cooked or half-cooked; the men devour as much as they want and pass on the remains to the women and children. A frog or two and a lizard, or a few grubs taken out of decayed timber, or perhaps a few roots that have been dug up on the march by the women, form a sort of dessert. After dusk there is the sound of chatter round the fires; then all retire to rest, with the glowing embers of the fires to give them warmth. At daybreak all are awake. If there is food at hand they may stay in the same camp for weeks together, but if not they journey on.

Each man had as many wives as he could obtain. He did not support them, but they supported him, and when children became too numerous he lessened his family by killing off a few. More than half the children were thus destroyed. Their enjoyments consisted of games with a kind of ball, and mock-fights, but especially in a wild dance they called the corrobboree. They were in general good-humoured when things went pleasantly; but a man would spear his wife through the leg or dash his child’s brains out readily enough when things were not to his taste, and nobody would think any the worse of him for it.

CHAPTER XVII.

1. Progress of Exploration.—The coasts of Australia had all been examined before the year 1815. From that date those who wished to make fresh discoveries were obliged to penetrate into the interior; and we have already seen that, previous to the year 1836, explorers were busy in opening up the south-east portion of the continent. Oxley had made known the northern districts of New South Wales, and Allan Cunningham the southern part of what is now the colony of Queensland. Hume and Hovell, Sturt and Mitchell, had traversed the southern districts of New South Wales and the territory now occupied by Victoria. Following closely in the footsteps of these intrepid discoverers, the squatters had entered all these districts, and, wherever the land was suitable, had settled down with their flocks; so that, ere long, all that corner of Australia which would be cut off by drawing a straight line from Brisbane to Adelaide was fully surveyed. But there still remained to be explored about seven-eighths of the continent; and from this date onward there was an unbroken succession of adventurous travellers, who entered the vast central territory for the purpose of making known its nature and capacities. But the manner of conducting an expedition was now very different from what it had been. Previous explorers had been provided with parties of convicts, and had traversed lands for the greater part grassy and well watered. These expeditions had their dangers, arising chiefly from the hostility of the blacks; and Allan Cunningham, his brother Richard, with many others, sacrificed their lives in their ardour for discovery. But subsequent travellers had to encounter, in addition, the pangs of hunger and thirst in that dry and desolate country which occupies so great a portion of Central Australia.

2. Eyre.—The first on this roll of gallant discoverers was Edward John Eyre, who, in 1840, offered to conduct an expedition to the interior. He himself provided about half the money required, the South Australian Government—which was then in difficulties—gave a hundred pounds, and a number of Eyre’s personal friends made up the remainder. With five Europeans, three natives, and thirteen horses, and with forty sheep to serve as food on the way, he set out from Adelaide and travelled to the head of Spencer’s Gulf, where a small vessel lay waiting to supply them with provisions sufficient for three months. Having traversed forty or fifty miles of desert land, he turned to the west, and came in sight of what he called Lake Torrens. It was now dried up, so that in place of a sheet of water twenty miles broad, he saw only a dreary region covered with glittering salt. When he entered upon it the thin crust of salt broke, and a thick black mud oozed up. The party plunged onward for about six miles, the mud becoming always deeper and deeper, till at length it half covered the saddles of their horses. He was then forced to turn back, and to seek a passage round this lake of mud; but, having followed its shores for many miles, there seemed to be so little prospect of reaching the end of the obstacle, that he turned his course again, from west to north. After travelling about two hundred miles through a very desolate country, he was once more arrested by coming upon a similar sheet of salt-encrusted mud, which he called Lake Eyre. Again there appeared no hope of either crossing the lake or going round it; no water was to be found, and his supplies were fast failing, so that he was forced to hasten back a long distance to the nearest stream. Setting out once more, he twice attempted to penetrate westward into the interior, but, on each occasion, the salt lakes barred his progress, and as a last effort he urged his failing party towards the north-east. Here the country was the most barren and desolate that can be imagined. It was not always so, but after a period of drought, when the grass is burnt to the roots and not a drop of fresh water to be seen in a hundred miles, it has all the appearance of a desert. His supplies of water ran short, and frequently the explorers were on the point of perishing. When they approached the Frome River—a creek which flows northwards into Lake Eyre—they were inexpressibly delighted to view from afar the winding current; but its waters were found to be as salt as the ocean. After a long and dreary journey, Eyre ascended a hill, in order to see if there was any hope of finding better country; but the view was only a great and barren level, stretching far away to the horizon on every side. He had now no water, and his only course was to turn back; so, leaving this place—which he called Mount Hopeless—he retraced his steps to the head of Spencer’s Gulf.

3. Australian Bight.—Here he changed the object of his journey, and made efforts to go along the shores of the Great Australian Bight, in order to reach West Australia. Three times he rounded Streaky Bay; but in that bare and desert land the want of water was an insuperable obstacle, and each time he was forced to retreat to less desolate country. Governor Gawler now sent word to him to return to Adelaide, as it seemed madness to make further efforts; but Eyre replied that to go back without having accomplished anything would be a disgrace he could never endure. Seeing that his only chance of reaching West Australia was to push rapidly forward with a simple and light equipment, he sent back the whole of his party except Mr. Baxter, his black servant Wylie, and the other two natives; and taking with him a few horses, carrying a supply of water and provisions for several weeks, he set out to follow the coast along the Great Australian Bight. His party had to scramble along the tops of rough cliffs which everywhere frowned from three hundred to six hundred feet above the sea; and if they left the coast to travel inland they had to traverse great stretches of moving sands, which filled their eyes and ears, covered them when asleep, and, when they sat at meals, made their food unpleasant. But they suffered most from want of water; for often they were obliged to walk day after day beneath a broiling sun when all their water was gone, and not a drop to be seen on the burning soil beneath them. On one occasion, after they had thus travelled 110 miles, the horses fell down from exhaustion, and could not be induced to move. Eyre and a native hastened forward; but, though they wandered for more than eighteen miles, they saw no sign of water, and when darkness came on they lay down, with lips parched and burning, and tossed in feverish slumber till morning. At early dawn they perceived a ridge of sand-hills not far away, and making for them they found a number of little wells—places where the natives had dug into the sand for six or eight feet, and so had reached fresh water. Here Eyre and his black companion drank a delicious draught, and hastened back with the precious beverage to revive the horses. The whole party was then able to go forward; and there, around these little waterholes, Eyre halted for a week to refresh his men and animals before attempting another stretch of similar country. They saw some natives, who told them that there was plenty of water farther on, and when Eyre set out again he carried very little with him, so as not to overburden the horses. But after sixty miles of the desert had been traversed without meeting any place in which water was to be found, he became alarmed, and sent back Mr. Baxter with the horses to bring up a better supply, whilst he himself remained to take charge of the baggage. When Baxter returned they all set forward again, and reached a sandy beach, where they had great difficulty in preventing the horses from drinking the sea-water, which would certainly have made them mad. As it was, two of them lay down to die, and part of the provisions had to be abandoned. Baxter now grew despondent, and wished to return; but Eyre was determined not yet to give up. Onward they toiled through the dreary wilderness, and two more horses fell exhausted; 126 miles from the last halting-place, and still no signs of water. Still onward, and the horses continued to drop by the way, Baxter constantly entreating Eyre to return. It was only after a journey of 160 miles that they came to a place where, by digging, they could obtain fresh water in very small quantities. They were now forced to eke out their failing provisions by eating horseflesh. Baxter was altogether disheartened; and, if to return had not been as dangerous as to go forward, Eyre would himself have abandoned the attempt. The three natives, however, were still as light-hearted and merry as ever; whilst the food lasted they were always full of frolic and laughter.

4. Death of Baxter.—Each evening Eyre formed a little camp, loaded the muskets, and laid them down ready for use in case of an attack by the blacks; the horses were hobbled, and set free to gather the little vegetation they could find. But this forced Eyre and Baxter to keep watch by turns, lest they should stray so far as to be lost. One evening when Eyre had taken the first watch, the horses, in their search for grass, had wandered about a quarter of a mile from the camp. He had followed them, and was sitting on a stone beneath the moonlight, musing on his gloomy prospects, when he was startled by a flash and a report. Hastening to the camp, he was met by Wylie, who was speechless with terror, and could only wring his hands and cry: “Oh, massa”. When he entered, he saw Baxter lying on his face, whilst the baggage was broken open, and scattered in all directions. He raised the wounded man in his arms, but only in time to support him as his head fell back in death. Then placing the body on the ground, and looking around him, he perceived that two of his natives had plundered the provisions, shot Mr. Baxter as he rose to remonstrate with them, and had then escaped. The moon became obscured, and in the deep gloom, beside the dead body of his friend, Eyre passed a fearful night, peering into the darkness lest the miscreants might be lurking near to shoot him also. He says, in his diary: “Ages can never efface the horrors of that single night, nor would the wealth of the world ever tempt me to go through a similar one”. The slowly-spreading dawn revealed the bleeding corpse, the plundered bags, and the crouching form of Wylie, who was still faithful. The ground at this place consisted of a great hard sheet of rock, and there was no chance of digging a grave; so Eyre could only wrap the body in a blanket, leave it lying on the surface, and thus take farewell of his friend’s remains.

5. Arrival at King George’s Sound.—Then he and Wylie set out together on their mournful journey. They had very little water, and seven days elapsed before they reached a place where more was to be obtained. At intervals they could see the murderers stealthily following their footsteps, and Eyre was afraid to lie down lest his sleep should prove to have no awaking; and thus, with parching thirst by day, and hours of watchfulness by night, he slowly made his way towards King George’s Sound. After a time the country became better; he saw and shot two kangaroos, and once more approached the coast. His surprise was great on seeing two boats some distance out at sea. He shouted and fired his rifle, without attracting the attention of the crews. But, on rounding a small cape, he found the vessel to which these boats belonged. It was a French whaling ship; and the two men, having been taken on board, were hospitably entertained for eleven days. Captain Rossiter gave them new clothes and abundance of food; and when they were thoroughly refreshed, they landed to pursue their journey. The country was not now so inhospitable; and three weeks afterwards they stood on the brow of a hill overlooking the little town of Albany, at King George’s Sound. Here they sat down to rest; but the people, hearing who they were, came out to escort them triumphantly into the town, where they were received with the utmost kindness. They remained for eleven days, and then set sail for Adelaide, which they reached after an absence of one year and twenty-six days.

This expedition was, unfortunately, through so barren a country that it had but little practical effect beyond the additions it made to our geography; but the perseverance and skill with which it was conducted are worthy of all honour, and Eyre is to be remembered as the first explorer who braved the dangers of the Australian desert.

6. Sturt.—Two years after the return of Eyre, Captain Sturt, the famous discoverer of the Darling and Murray, wrote to Lord Stanley offering to conduct an expedition into the heart of Australia. His offer was accepted; and in May, 1844, a well-equipped party of sixteen persons was ready to start from the banks of the Darling River. Places which Sturt had explored sixteen years before, when they were a deep and unknown solitude, were now covered with flocks and cattle; and he could use, as the starting-place of this expedition, the farthest point he had reached in that of 1828. Mr. Poole went with him as surveyor, Mr. Browne as surgeon, and the draughtsman was Mr. J. MʻDouall Stuart, who, in this expedition, received a splendid training for his own great discoveries of subsequent years. Following the Darling, they reached Laidley’s Ponds, passed near Lake Cawndilla, and then struck northward for the interior. The country was very bare—one dead level of cheerless desert; and when they reached a few hills which they called Stanley Range, now better known as Barrier Range, Sturt, who ascended to one of the summits, could see nothing hopeful in the prospect. How little did he dream that the hills beneath him were full of silver, and that one day a populous city of miners should occupy the waterless plain in front of him! In this region he had to be very careful how he advanced, for he had with him eleven horses, thirty bullocks, and two hundred sheep, and water for so great a multitude could with difficulty be procured. He had always to ride forward and find a creek or pond of sufficient size, as the next place of encampment, before allowing the expedition to move on; and, as water was often very difficult to find, his progress was but slow. Fortunately for the party, it was the winter season, and a few of the little creeks had a moderate supply of water. But after they had reached a chain of hills, which Sturt called the Grey Range, the warm season was already upon them. The summer of 1844 was one of the most intense on record; and in these vast interior plains of sand, under the fiery glare of the sun, the earth seemed to burn like plates of metal: it split the hoofs of the horses; it scorched the shoes and the feet of the men; it dried up the water from the creeks and pools, and left all the country parched and full of cracks. Sturt spent a time of great anxiety, for the streams around were rapidly disappearing; and, when all the water had been dried up, the prospects of his party would, indeed, be gloomy. His relief was therefore great when Mr. Poole found a creek in a rocky basin, whose waters seemed to have a perennial flow. Sturt moved forward, and formed his depôt beside the stream; and here he was forced to remain for six weeks. For it appeared as though he had entered a trap; the country before him was absolutely without water, so that he could not advance; while the creeks behind him were now only dry courses, and it was hopeless to think of returning. He made many attempts to escape, and struck out into the country in all directions. In one of his efforts, if he had gone only thirty miles farther, he would have found the fine stream of Cooper’s Creek, in which there was sufficient water for the party; but hunger and thirst forced him to return to the depôt. He followed down the creek on which they were encamped, but found that, after a course of twenty-nine miles, it lost itself in the sand.

Meantime the travellers passed a summer such as few men have ever experienced. The heat was sometimes as high as 130 deg. in the shade, and in the sun it was altogether intolerable. They were unable to write, as the ink dried at once on their pens; their combs split; their nails became brittle and readily broke, and if they touched a piece of metal it blistered their fingers. In their extremity they dug an underground room, deep enough to be beyond the dreadful furnace-glow above. Here they spent many a long day, as month after month passed without a shower of rain. Sometimes they watched the clouds gather, and they could hear the distant roll of thunder, but there fell not a drop to refresh the dry and dusty desert. The party began to grow thin and weak; Mr. Poole became ill with scurvy, and from day to day he sank rapidly. At length, when winter was again approaching, a gentle shower moistened the plain; and, as the only chance of saving the life of Poole, half of the party was sent to carry him quickly back to the Darling. They had been gone only a few hours when a messenger rode back with the news that he was already dead. The mournful cavalcade returned, bearing his remains, and a grave was dug in the wilderness. A tree close by, on which his initials were cut, formed the only memorial of the hapless explorer.

7. Journey to the Centre.—Shortly afterwards there came a succession of wet days, and, as there was now an abundance of water, the whole party once more set off; having travelled north-west for sixty-one miles farther, they formed a new depôt, and made excursions to explore the country in the neighbourhood. MʻDouall Stuart crossed over to Lake Torrens; while Sturt, with Dr. Browne and three men, pushing to the north, discovered the Strzelecki Creek, a stream which flows through very agreeable country. But as they proceeded farther to the north their troubles began again; they came upon a region covered with hill after hill of fiery red sand, amid which lay lagoons of salt and bitter water. They toiled over this weary country in hopes that a change for the better might soon appear; but when they reached the last hill, they had the mortification to see a great plain, barren, monotonous and dreary, stretching with a purple glare as far as the eye could reach on every side. This plain was called by Sturt the “Stony Desert,” for, on descending, he found it covered with innumerable pieces of quartz and sandstone, among which the horses wearily stumbled. Sturt wished to penetrate as far as the tropic of Capricorn; but summer was again at hand, their water was failing, and they could find neither stream nor pool. When the madness of any farther advance became apparent, Sturt, with his head buried in his hands, sat for an hour in bitter disappointment. After toiling so far, and reaching within 150 miles of his destination, to be turned back for the want of a little water was a misfortune very hard to bear, and, but for his companions, he would have still gone forward and perished. As they hastened back their water was exhausted, and they were often in danger of being buried by moving hills of sand; but at length they reached the depôt, having traversed 800 miles during the eight weeks of their absence.

It was not long before Sturt started again, taking with him MʻDouall Stuart as his companion. On this trip he suffered the same hardships, but had the satisfaction of discovering a magnificent stream, which he called Cooper’s Creek. On crossing this creek he again entered the Stony Desert, and was once more compelled reluctantly to retrace his steps. When he reached the depôt he was utterly worn out. He lay in bed for a long time, tenderly nursed by his companions; and, when the whole party set out on its return to the settled districts, he had to be lifted in and out of the dray in which he was carried. As they neared their homes his sight began to fail. The glare of the burning sands had destroyed his eyes, and he passed the remainder of his days in darkness. His reports of the arid country gave rise to the opinion that the whole interior of Australia was a desert; but this was afterwards found to be far from correct.

8. Leichardt.—Allan Cunningham’s discoveries extended over the northern parts of New South Wales and the southern districts of Queensland. But all the north-eastern parts of the continent were left unexplored until 1844, when an intrepid young German botanist, named Ludwig Leichardt, made known this rich and fertile country. With five men he started from Sydney, and, passing through splendid forests and magnificent pasture lands, he made his way to the Gulf of Carpentaria, discovering and following up many large rivers—the Fitzroy, with its tributaries—the Dawson, the Isaacs and the Mackenzie; the Burdekin, with several of its branches; then the Mitchell; and, lastly, the Gilbert. He also crossed the Flinders and Albert, without knowing that, a short time previously, these rivers had been discovered and named by Captain Stokes, who was exploring the coasts in a British war-ship. Having rounded the gulf, he discovered the Roper, and followed the Alligator River down to Van Diemen’s Gulf, where a vessel was waiting to receive his party. On his return to Sydney the utmost enthusiasm prevailed; for Leichardt had made known a wide stretch of most valuable country. The people of Sydney raised a subscription of £1,500, and the Government rewarded his services with £1,000. Leichardt was of too ardent a nature to remain content with what he had already done; and, in 1847, he again set out to make further explorations in the north of Queensland. On this occasion, however, he was not so successful. He had taken with him great flocks of sheep and goats, and they impeded his progress so much that, after wandering over the Fitzroy Downs for about seven months, he was forced to return. In 1848 he organised a third expedition, to cross the whole country from east to west. He proposed to start from Moreton Bay, and to take two years in traversing the centre of the continent, so as to reach the Swan River settlement. He set out with a large party, and soon reached the Cogoon River, a tributary of the Condamine. From this point he sent to a friend in Sydney a letter, in which he described himself as in good spirits, and full of hope that the expedition would be a success. He then started into the wilderness, and was lost for ever from men’s view. For many years parties were, from time to time, sent out to rescue the missing explorers, if perchance they might still be wandering with the blacks in the interior; but no traces of the lost company have ever been brought to light.

9. Mitchell.—Whilst Leichardt was absent on his first journey, Sir Thomas Mitchell—the discoverer of the Glenelg—had prepared an expedition for the exploration of Queensland. Having waited till the return of Leichardt, in order not to go over the same ground, he set out towards the north, and, after discovering the Culgoa and Warrego—two important tributaries of the Darling—he turned to the west. He travelled over a great extent of level country, and then came upon a river which somewhat puzzled him. He followed the current for 150 miles, and it seemed to flow steadily towards the heart of the continent. He thought that its waters must eventually find their way to the sea, and would, therefore, after a time, flow north to the Indian Ocean. If that were the case, the river—which the natives called the Barcoo—must be the largest stream on the northern coast, and he concluded that it was identical with the Victoria, whose mouth had been discovered about nine years before by Captain Stokes. He, therefore, provisionally gave it the name of the Victoria River.

10. Kennedy.—On the return of Mitchell, the further prosecution of exploration in these districts was left to his assistant-surveyor—Edmund Kennedy—who, having been sent to trace the course of the supposed Victoria River, followed its banks for 150 miles below the place where Mitchell had left it. He was then forced to return through want of provisions; but he had gone far enough, however, to show that this stream was only the higher part of Cooper’s Creek, discovered not long before by Captain Sturt. This river has a course of about 1,200 miles; and it is, therefore, the largest of Central Australia. But its waters spread out into the broad marshes of Lake Eyre, and are there lost by evaporation.

In 1848 Kennedy was sent to explore Cape York Peninsula. He was landed with a party of twelve men at Rockingham Bay, and, striking inland to the north-west, travelled towards Cape York, where a small schooner was to wait for him. The difficulties met by the explorers were immense; for, in these tropical regions, dense jungles of prickly shrubs impeded their course and lacerated their flesh, while vast swamps often made their journey tedious and unexpectedly long. Thinking there was no necessity for all to endure these hardships, he left eight of his companions at Weymouth Bay, intending to call for them on his way back in the schooner. He was courageously pushing through the jungle towards the north with three men and his black servant Jackey, when one of the party accidentally received a severe gunshot wound, which made it impossible for him to proceed. Kennedy was now only a few miles distant from Cape York; and, leaving the wounded man under the care of the two remaining whites, he started—accompanied by Jackey—to reach the cape and obtain assistance from the schooner. They had not gone far, and were on the banks of the Escape River, when they perceived that their steps were being closely followed by a tribe of natives, whose swarthy bodies, from time to time, appeared among the trees. Kennedy now proceeded warily, keeping watch all around; but a spear, urged by an unseen hand from among the leaves, suddenly pierced his body from behind, and he fell. The blacks rushed forward, but Jackey fired, and at the report they hastily fled. Jackey held up his master’s head for a short time, weeping bitterly. Kennedy knew he was dying, and he gave his faithful servant instructions as to the papers he was to carry, and the course he must follow. Not long after this he breathed his last, and Jackey, with his tomahawk, dug a shallow grave for him in the forest. He spread his coat and shirt in the hollow, laid the body tenderly upon them, and covered it with leaves and branches. Then, packing up the journals, he plunged into the creek, along which he walked, with only his head above the surface, until he neared the shore. Hastily making for the north, he reached the cape, where he was taken on board the schooner. This expedition was one of the most disastrous of the inland explorations. The wounded man, and the two who had been left with him, were never afterwards heard of—in all probability they were slaughtered by the natives; whilst the party of eight, who had been left at Weymouth Bay, after constant struggles with the natives, had been reduced, by starvation and disease, to only two ere the expected relief arrived.

11. Gregory.—In 1856 A. C. Gregory went in search of Leichardt, and, thinking he might possibly have reached the north-west coast, took a small party to Cambridge Gulf. Travelling along the banks of the Victoria River, he crossed a low range of hills and discovered a stream, to which he gave the name of “Sturt Creek”. By following this, he was led into a region covered with long ridges of glaring red sand, resembling those which had baffled Captain Sturt, except that in this desert there grew the scattered blades of the spinifex grass, which cut like daggers into the hoofs of the horses. The creek was lost in marshes and salt lakes, and Gregory was forced to retrace his steps till he reached the great bend in the Victoria River; then, striking to the east, he skirted the Gulf of Carpentaria about fifty miles from the shore; and, after a long journey, arrived at Moreton Bay, but without any news regarding Leichardt and his party. His expedition, however, had explored a great extent of country, and had mapped out the courses of two large rivers—the Victoria and the Roper.

CHAPTER XVIII.

1. Burke and Wills.—In the year 1860 a merchant of Melbourne offered £1,000 for the furtherance of discovery in Australia; the Royal Society of Victoria undertook to organise an expedition for the purpose of crossing the continent, and collected subscriptions to the amount of £3,400; the Victorian Government voted £6,000, and spent an additional sum of £3,000 in bringing twenty-six camels from Arabia. Under an energetic committee of the Royal Society, the most complete arrangements were made. Robert O’Hara Burke was chosen as leader; Landells was second in command, with special charge of the camels, for which three Hindoo drivers were also provided; W. J. Wills, an accomplished young astronomer, was sent to take charge of the costly instruments and make all the scientific observations. There were two other scientific men and eleven subordinates, with twenty-eight horses to assist in transporting the baggage. On the 20th August, 1860, the long train of laden camels and horses set out from the Royal Park of Melbourne, Burke heading the procession on a little grey horse. The mayor made a short speech, wishing him God-speed; the explorers shook hands with their friends, and, amid the ringing cheers of thousands of spectators, the long and picturesque line moved forward.