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The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888

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Poor Sturt! no boat of his was ever to float on that visionary sea, nor
his flag to wave over its dream waters.

The whole of the party now removed to a small shallow lake, the
termination of the Williorara Channel. From here he started on an
excursion to the more distant ranges reported by Poole, accompanied by
Browne and two men, went ahead for the purpose of finding water of a
sufficient permanency to remove the whole of the party, as at the lake
where they were encamped there was always the chance of becoming
embroiled with the natives. He was successful in finding what he wanted,
and on the 4th of November the main body of the expedition removed there,
now finally leaving the waters of the Darling.

The next day, Sturt and Browne, with three men and the cart, started on
another trip in search of water ahead. This they found in small
quantities, and rain coming on, Sturt returned and sent Poole out again
to search, whilst the camp was moved on. On his return he reported having
seen some shallow, brackish lakes, and caught sight of Eyre's Mount
Serle. They were now on the western slope of the Barrier Ranges, and but
for the providential discovery of a fine creek to the north, would have
been unable to retain their position. To this creek (Flood's Creek) they
removed the camp, and Sturt congratulated himself on the steady and
satisfactory progress he was making. They now left the Barrier Range, and
made for one further north, staying for some ten days at a small lagoon,
during which time an examination of the country ahead was made.

On the 27th January, 1845, they removed to a creek, heading from a small
range; at the head of this creek was a fine supply of permanent water,
and here the explorers pitched their tents, little thinking that it would
be the 17th of July following before they would be struck. Perhaps a
short description from Sturt's pen will aid the reader's imagination in
picturing the situation of the party.



"It was not, however, until after we had run down every creek in the
neighbourhood, and had traversed the country in every direction, that the
truth flashed across my mind, and it became evident to me that we were
locked up in the desolate and heated region into which we had penetrated
as effectually as if we had wintered at the Pole. It was long indeed ere
I could bring myself to believe that so great a misfortune had overtaken
us, but so it was. Providence had, in its all wise purposes, guided us to
the only spot in that wide-spread desert, where our wants could have been
permanently supplied, but had there stayed our further progress into a
region that almost appears to be forbidden ground."

* * * * *

"The creek was marked by a line of gum-trees, from the mouth of the glen
to its junction with the main branch, in which, excepting in isolated
spots, water was no longer to be found. The Red Hill (afterwards called
Mount Poole) bore N. N.W. from us, distant three and a-half miles;
between us and it there were undulating plains, covered with stones or
salsolaceous herbage, excepting in the hollows wherein there was a little
grass. Behind us were level stony plains, with small sandy undulations
bounded by brush, over which the Black Hill was visible, distant ten
miles, bearing S.S.E. from the Red Hill. To the eastward, the country was
as I have described it, hilly. Westward at a quarter of a mile the low
range, through which Depôt Creek forces itself, shut out from our view
the extensive plains on which it rises."


This then was Sturt's prison, although at first he had not realised that
in spite of every precaution, his retreat was cut off until the next
rainfall.

Of Sturt's existence and occupation during this dreary period little can
be said. He tried in every direction, until convinced of the uselessness
of so doing, sometimes encouraged and led on by shallow pools in some
fragmentary creek bed, at others, seeing nothing before him but hopeless
aridity. Now, too, he found himself attacked with what he then thought
was rheumatism, but proved to be scurvy, and Poole and Browne too were
afflicted in the same way.

We now come to one of the picturesque incidents that Sturt has introduced
in his narrative, and that help to fix on our memory the strangely weird
picture of the lonely band of men confronted with the unaccustomed forces
of nature in this wilderness.


"As we rode across the stony plain lying between us and the hills, the
heated and parching blasts that came upon us, were more than we could
bear. We were in the centre of the plain, when Mr. Browne drew my
attention to a number of small black specks in the upper air. These spots
increasing momentarily in size, were evidently approaching us rapidly. In
an incredibly short space of time, we were surrounded by hundreds of the
common kite, stooping down to within a few feet of us, and then turning
away after having eyed us steadily. Several approached us so closely,
that they threw themselves back to avoid contact, opening their beaks and
spreading out their talons. The long flight of these birds, reaching from
the ground into the heavens, put me strongly in mind of one of Martin's
beautiful designs, in which he produces the effect of distance by a
multitude of objects vanishing from the view."


Sturt, during his detention in the depôt, made one desperate attempt to
the north, when he succeeded in getting a mile above the 28th parallel,
but found nothing to repay him for his trouble.

And so week after week of this fearful monotony passed on without hardly
a break or change.

Once, an old native wandered to their camp. He was starving and thirsty,
looking a fit being to emerge from the gaunt waste around them. The dogs
attacked him when he approached, but he stood his ground and fought them
valiantly until they were called off; his whole demeanour was calm and
courageous, and he showed neither surprise nor timidity. He drank
greedily when water was given him, and ate voraciously, but whence he
came the men could not divine nor could he explain to them. He accepted
what was given to him, as a right expected by one fellow-being from
another, cut off in the desert from their own kin. While he stopped at
their camp he showed that he knew the use of the boat, explaining that it
was upside down, as of course it was, and pointing to the N.W. as the
place where they would want it, raising poor Sturt's hopes once more.
After a fortnight he departed as he came, saying he would come back, but
he never did.


"With him," says Sturt pathetically, "all our hopes vanished, for even
the presence of this savage was soothing to us, and so long as he
remained we indulged in anticipations as to the future. From the time of
his departure a gloomy silence pervaded the camp; we were, indeed, placed
under the most trying circumstances, everything combined to depress our
spirits and exhaust our patience. We had witnessed migration after
migration of the feathered tribes, to that point to which we were so
anxious to push our way. Flights of cockatoos, of parrots, of pigeons,
and of bitterns; birds, also, whose notes had cheered us in the
wilderness, all had taken the same high road to a better and more
hospitable region."


And now the water began to sink with frightful rapidity, and they all
thought that the end was surely coming. Hoping against hope, Sturt laid
his plans to start as soon as the drought broke up, himself to proceed
north and west whilst poor Poole, reduced to a frightful condition by
scurvy, was to be sent carefully back as the only means of saving his
life.

On the 12th and 13th of July the rain commenced, and the siege was
raised, but Poole never lived to profit by it. Every arrangement for his
comfort was made that the circumstances permitted, but on the first day's
journey he died, and they brought his body back to the depôt and made his
lonely grave there. Sturt's way was now open. After burying his lamented
friend, he again dispatched the party that was selected to return home,
and, with renewed hope, made preparations for the northwest. He first,
however, removed the depôt to a better grassed locality, water being now
plentiful everywhere. During a short western trip, on the 4th August they
found themselves on the edge of an immense shallow and sandy basin, in
which were detached sheets of water, "as blue as indigo and as salt as
brine." This they took to be Lake Torrens, and returned to the depôt to
arrange matters for a final departure.

Stuart was left in charge of the depôt, Browne accompanying Sturt; and on
the 14th a start was made. For some days, owing to the pools of surface
water left by the recent rain, they had no difficulty in keeping a
straightforward course. The country passed over consisted of large level
plains and long sand ridges, but they crossed numerous creeks and found
more or less water in all of them, and finally got into a well-grassed,
pleasing looking country, which greatly cheered them with a prospect of
success, when, suddenly, they were confronted by a wall of sand, and for
nearly twenty miles toiled over succeeding ridges. Fortunately, they
found both water and feed, but their hopes received a sudden and complete
downfall. Nor did a walk to the extremity of one of the sand ridges serve
to raise their spirits. Sturt saw before him an immense plain, of a
dark purple hue, with its horizon like that of the sea, boundless in the
direction in which he wished to proceed. This was the Stony Desert. That
night they camped in it, and the next morning came to an earthy plain,
with here and there a few bushes of polygonum growing beside some stray
channel, in some of which they, luckily, found a little muddy rain water
still left. When they camped at night they sighted, for a short time,
some hills to the north, and, on examining them through the telescope,
saw dark shadows on their faces as if produced by cliffs. Next day they
made for these hills, in the hope of finding a change of country and feed
for their horses; but they were disappointed. Sand ridges in terrible
array once more rose up before them. "Even the animals," says Sturt,
"appeared to regard them with dismay."

Over plains and sand dunes, the former full of yawning cracks and holes,
the party pushed on, subsisting on precarious pools of muddy water and
fast-sinking native wells; until, on the 3rd of September, Flood, the
stockman, who was riding ahead, held up his hat and called aloud to them
that a large creek was in sight.

On coming up the others saw a beautiful watercourse, the bed of which was
full of grass and water. This creek Sturt called Eyre's Creek, and it was
one of the most important discoveries he made in this region. Along this
watercourse they made easy stages until the 7th, when the creek was lost,
and the water in the lagoons near the bank was found to be intensely
salt. After repeated efforts to continue his journey, which only led him
amongst the everlasting sand hills, separated by plains encrusted with
salt, Sturt came to the erroneous conclusion that he was at the head of
the creek, and further progress impossible. Had he but known it, he was
within reach of permanently watered rivers, along which he could have
travelled as far north as he wished. But there was neither sign nor clue
afforded him; his men were sick, and his retreat to the depôt most
precarious; there was nothing for it but to fall back again, and after a
toilsome journey they reached the depôt, or Fort Grey as they had
christened it, on the 2nd October.

Sturt now made up his mind for a final effort due north, and in company
with Stuart and two fresh men, he started on the 9th of October; and on
the second day reached Strzelecki Creek, which was the name they had
given to the first creek crossed on their late expedition. On the 13th,
they arrived at the banks of a magnificent channel with grassy banks,
fine trees and abundant water; this was the now well-known Cooper's
Creek, one of the most important rivers of the interior, its tributaries
draining the southern slopes of the dividing watershed in the north.

Sturt on reaching this unexpected discovery was uncertain whether to
follow its course to the eastward, or persevere in his original intention
of pushing to the north. A thunder storm falling at the time made him
adhere to his original course, and defer the examination of the new river
until his return. In seven days after leaving Cooper's Creek, he had the
negative satisfaction, as he expected, of gazing over the dreary waste of
the stony desert, unchanged and forbidding as ever. They crossed it, and
were again turned back by sand hill and salt plain, and forced to retrace
their steps to Cooper's Creek. This creek Sturt followed upward for many
days, but finding it did not take him in the direction he desired to go,
and moreover, the large broad channel that they first came to, became
divided into many small ones, which ran through flooded plains, making
the travelling most tiring on their exhausted horses; he reluctantly
turned back. They had found the creek well populated with natives, and
the prospects of getting on were apparently better than they had ever met
with before, but both Sturt and his men were weak and ill, and his horses
thoroughly tired out, and also he was not sure of his retreat.

Following Cooper's Creek back, they found that the water had dried up so
rapidly that grave fears were entertained that Strzelecki's Creek, their
main reliance in going back to the depôt, would be dry. Fortunately, they
were in time to find a little muddy fluid left, just enough to serve
them. Here they experienced a hot wind that forced them to camp the whole
day, although most anxious to get on.


"We had scarcely got there," writes Sturt, "when the wind, which had
been blowing all the morning hot from the north-east, increased to a
gale, and I shall never forget its withering effects. I sought shelter
behind a large gum tree, but the blasts of heat were so terrific, that I
wondered the very grass did not take fire. This really was nothing ideal;
everything, both animate and inanimate, gave way before it; the horses
stood with their backs to the wind, and their noses to the ground,
without the muscular strength to raise their heads; the birds were mute,
and the leaves of the tree under which we were sitting, fell like a snow
shower around us. At noon, I took a thermometer, graduated to 127
degrees, out of my box, and observed that the mercury was up to 125.
Thinking that it had been unduly influenced, I put it in the fork of a
tree close to me, sheltered alike from the wind and the sun. In this
position I went to examine it about an hour afterwards, when I found that
the mercury had risen to the top of the instrument, and that its further
expansion had burst the bulb, a circumstance that, I believe, no
traveller has had to recount before."


Let the reader remember when reading the above description, which has
been so much quoted, that the man who wrote it was in such a weakened
condition, that he had no energy left to withstand the hot wind, and that
the shade they were cowering under was of the scantiest description.

They had still a journey of eighty-six miles, back to Fort Grey, with
little prospect of any water being found on the way. After a long and
weary ride they reached it only to find that, owing to the bad state of
the water, Browne had been compelled to fall back on to their old camp at
the Depôt Glen.


"We reached the plain just as the sun was descending, without having
dismounted from our horses for fifteen hours, and as we rode down the
embankment into it, looked around for the cattle, but none were to be
seen. We looked towards the little sandy mound on which the tents had
stood, but no white objects there met our eye; we rode slowly up to the
stockade and found it silent and deserted. I was quite sure that Mr.
Browne had had urgent reasons for retiring. I had, indeed, anticipated
the measure. I hardly hoped to find him at the Fort, and had given him
instructions on the subject of his removal; yet, a sickening feeling came
over me when I saw that he was really gone; not on my own account, for,
with the bitter feelings of disappointment with which I was returning
home, I could calmly have laid my head on that desert, never to raise it
again."


Riding day and night, Sturt at last reached the encampment, so exhausted
as to be hardly able to stand:--


"When I dismounted, I had nearly fallen forward. Thinking that one of the
kangaroo dogs, in his greeting, had pushed me between the legs, I turned
round to give him a slap, but no dog was there, and I soon found out that
what I had felt was nothing more than strong muscular action, brought on
by riding."


Now came the question of their final escape. The water in the Depôt Creek
was so much reduced that they feared that there would be none left in
Flood's Creek, and if so, they were once more imprisoned. Browne
undertook the long ride of one hundred and eighteen miles, which was to
decide the question. Preparations had to be made for his journey by
filling a bullock skin with water, and sending a dray with it as far as
possible; and on the eighth day he returned.

"'Well Browne,' said Sturt, who was helpless in his tent, 'what news? Is
it to be good or bad?' 'there is still water in the creek,' replied
Browne, 'but that is all I can say; what there is, is as black as ink,
and we must make haste, for in a week it will be gone.'"


The boat that was to have floated on the inland sea, was left to rot at
the Depôt Glen, all the heaviest of the stores abandoned., and the
retreat of over two hundred miles to the Darling commenced.

More bullock skins were fashioned into bags, to carry water for the
stock, and with their aid, and that of a kindly shower of rain, they
crossed the dry stage to Flood's Creek in safety. Here they found the
vegetation more advanced, and with care, and constant activity in looking
out for water on ahead, they gradually left behind them the scene of
their labours and approached the Darling; Sturt having to be carried on
one of the drays, and lifted on and off at each stoppage.

On the 21st December, they arrived at the camp of the relief party, under
Piesse, at Williorara, and Sturt's last expedition came to an end.

As he has often been termed the father of Australian exploration, it may
be as well to look back on the result of his life-long labours. His
burning desire to reach the heart of the continent had constantly led him
into dangers and difficulties that other explorers shunned, and
unfortunate as he always was in his seasons, he brought back a forbidding
report of the, usefulness of the country he had discovered, which led to
its gradual settlement, only after long years had passed, and men had
grown accustomed to the desert, and laughed at its terrors; finding that
experience robbed them of their first effect.

Sturt found the Darling, and traced the Murray to its mouth, thus
discovering the great arteries of the water system of the most populated
part of Australia, leaving the details to be filled in by others. In the
interior he was the finder of Eyre's Creek and Cooper's Creek; one of the
tributaries of the latter was soon afterwards discovered by Mitchell,
and named by him the Victoria, now called the Barcoo. In these two
creeks, as he called them, on account of the absence of flowing water in
their beds, Sturt unwittingly crossed the second and only other great
inland river system of the continent. In the basin he traversed, in which
these creeks lost their character, he was riding over the united beds of
the Barcoo, the Thomson, the Diamentina, and the Herbert, west of whose
waters nothing in the shape of a defined system of drainage exists, until
the rivers of the western coast are reached. As a scientific explorer
then, whose object was to unravel the mystery of the interior, solve, if
possible, the question of its strange peculiarity, and trace out its
physical formation, Sturt may well be held the first and greatest. His
success, perhaps, was greater than he himself imagined, he came back
dispirited with failure but as before he had found the broad outlines of
the plan of the drainage of the great plains, to be afterwards completed
by the discoveries of the tributary streams.

In addition to his longing to be the first to reach the centre of
Australia, Sturt fondly hoped that once past the southern zone of the
tropics, he would find himself in a country blessed with a heavier and
more constant rainfall; as it was impossible for him to know at that
time, that the force of the north-west monsoon was expended on the
northern coast, and none of the tropical deluge found its way with any
degree of regularity to the thirsty inland slope; this theory appeared
on the face of it, feasible. Although an after knowledge may have now
enabled us to see the mistakes he made, and to regard his descriptions of
the uninhabitable nature of the interior as exaggerated, it must be
admitted that others in the same place and circumstances would have made
similar errors, and drawn equally false conclusions.

In taking leave of this explorer, another short extract from his journal
will best show the character of the man of whom Australians should be so
justly proud.


"Circumstances may yet arise to give a value to my recent labours, and my
name may be remembered by after generations in Australia, as the first
who tried to penetrate to its centre. If I failed in that great object, I
have one consolation in the retrospect of my past services. My path
amongst savage tribes has been a bloodless one, not but that I have
often been placed in situations of risk and danger, when I might have
been justified in shedding blood, but I trust I have ever made allowances
for human timidity, and respected the customs of the rudest people."


The next prominent figure in the history of this time is Leichhardt,
whose unknown fate has been the cause of so much sentiment clinging about
his name.

Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt arrived in the colony in 1842, and travelled to
Moreton Bay overland, where he occupied himself for two years in short
excursions in the neighbourhood, pursuing his favourite study of physical
science. Leichhardt was born in Beskow, near Berlin, and studied in
Berlin. Through a neglect, he was excluded from the one-year military
service, and thereby induced to escape from the three-yearly service. The
consequence was, that he was pursued as a deserter and sentenced IN
CONTUMACIAM.

Afterwards, Alexander Von Humboldt succeeded, by representing 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. This order, whether of any value to
Leichhardt or not, came too late. When it arrived in Australia he had
already started on his last expedition.

When the expedition was projected from Fort Bourke, on the Darling, to
the Gulf of Carpentaria or Port Essington, he was desirous of securing
the position of naturalist thereon; the delay in the starting of it
disappointed him, and he made up his mind to attempt one on his own
account, a project in which he received little encouragement. He
persevered, however, and eking out his own resources, by means of private
contributions he managed to get a party together, and on the 1st of
October, 1844, he left Jimbour, on the Darling Downs, with six whites and
two blacks, 17 horses, 16 head of cattle, and four kangaroo dogs; his
other supplies being proportionately meagre.

As Leichhardt's journal of this trip has been so widely read, and as it
does not possess the same striking interest as that of Sturt's, from the
more accessible nature of the country travelled through, and the absence
of the constantly threatening dangers overhanging both Sturt and Eyre, a
shorter account of the progress of the expedition will be found most
acceptable.

His plan of starting from the Moreton Bay district, and proceeding to
Port Essington, differed considerably from that proposed by Sir Thomas
Mitchell. The course adopted by Leichhardt, although longer and more
roundabout than that suggested from Fort Bourke, would be safer for his
little band, keeping as it would, more to the well-watered coastal
districts, and avoiding the constant separations entailed upon parties
traversing the interior.

Leaving the head waters of the Condamine, the river which receives so
many of the tributary streams of the Darling Downs, Leichhardt struck a
river, which he named the Dawson, thence he passed westward, on to the
fine country of the Peak Downs, whereon he named the minor waters of the
Comet, Planet, and Zamia Creeks.

On the 10th of January, 1845, the Mackenzie River was discovered, and
here the Doctor and the black boy, Charlie, managed to get lost for two
or three days, a faculty which apparently most of the party happily
possessed. Following up the Isaacs River, a tributary of the Fitzroy,
they crossed the head of it on to the Suttor; the only variation in the
monotonous record of the daily travel being the occasional capture of
game, and the mutinous conduct of the two black boys, who at various
times essayed to leave the party and shift for themselves, but were on
each occasion glad to return.

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