A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888

E >> Ernest Favenc >> The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888




Oxley then left Sydney in the MERMAID, to examine the inlets of Port
Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, with a view to forming a penal
settlement there. It was on this trip, while at Moreton Bay, that they
rescued from the blacks the two men Pamphlet and Finnigan, who had been
wrecked at Moreton Island seven months before. Oxley named the Brisbane
River. This was his last work, and he died near Sydney in 1828. His
career as an explorer was very successful. He had done much to aid the
new colony, but was ever disappointed in his hopes of reaching the inland
sea or lake, and of proving, except to his own satisfaction, whether any
large rivers entered the sea between Cape Otway and Spencer's Gulf. Then
Sir Thomas Brisbane thought of landing a party of prisoners near Wilson's
Promontory, and by offer of a free pardon and a land grant, to find their
way back to Sydney.

Mr. Hume, the first Australian-born explorer, and Mr. Hovell, took a
party from Lake George, at that time the most outside station, to Western
Port, and they were the first to see the Australian Alps. This trip
helped to prove the hasty condemnation of Oxley's "desert" theory, and
besides giving to the colony millions of acres of well-watered fertile
country, and adding another large and important river--the Murray--it
also held out far higher hopes for the future of the interior. During
this time a settlement was formed at Moreton Bay, and subsequently
removed to a better site on the Brisbane River. Cunningham, in 1827, left
on a trip destined materially to effect the immediate progress of this
new colony. Crossing Oxley's track, and entering the unexplored region,
after naming the Gwydir and Dumaresque Rivers, he finally emerged on the
Darling Downs. He was in raptures at the inexhaustible range of cattle
pasture, the permanent water, and the grass and herbage generally. Then a
passage across the range to Moreton Bay was found by way of Cunningham's
Gap, but it was not used until the next year, when, accompanied by Mr.
Frazer, colonial botanist, they proceeded by sea to Moreton Bay, and
connected the settlement with the Darling Downs. How easy was the main
range crossed here, and the fertile downs laid open, compared to the
years of labour spent on the pass of the Blue Mountains. In the year
following Cunningham made his last expedition, closing ten years of
unceasing work in the cause of exploration.

Sturt followed Oxley's tracks. He exposed some of Oxley's mistakes, but
only to make others as great; for the land was smitten with drought, and
the rivers that Oxley had followed were now mere creeks, and in passing
judgment no allowance was made for the seasons, and the country was
valued according to the standard of other countries. His descriptions of
the interior are wonderful pictures of the desolate, waterless, abandoned
desert, "I scorched beneath a lurid sun of burning fire." His mission was
to ascertain what lay beyond the shallow bed of reeds to the westward, in
which Oxley lost the Macquarie; but as suddenly and as mysteriously the
river ran out, and they were as completely baffled as Oxley had been. Dry
on all sides, nothing was found but stony ridges or open forest, the
country was monotonously level, and no sign of a river. Creek after creek
they followed, only to lose it in a marsh. Suddenly they found themselves
on the banks of a noble river, and from its size and saltness, Sturt
conjectured he was near its confluence with an inland sea; but to be
convinced in a few more days that the saltness was of local origin, fed
by saline springs. This river Sturt called the Darling. The homeward
march began, and the same harassing hunt for water; no break in the
country, or change in the vegetation; all brown, blank, and desolate; not
even inhabited by a bird-the drought had so long continued. Sturt had
found the Darling, and he it was who eventually traced its course and
outlet. Starting for that purpose the next year, they sailed down the
Murray, proving its confluence with the Darling, and on down the united
streams of the Murray and Darling with boundless flats on each side. The
river widened day by day; the flight of sea-gulls, and the chopping sea
caused by the wind, surely showed they were near the ocean. Still, Sturt
had reached his goal--the Murray ended in a lake. They had hoped that
succour would have waited them, had the ocean been reached. Now they must
re-enter the Murray while the weary party had still strength to face each
day's never-ending toil, and return to the camp on the Murrumbidgee. The
great satisfaction of having successfully followed the course of the
Murray was damped by the apparently valueless nature of the country
passed through. And this trip, while adding greatly to Australian
geography, gave a proof of the most patient endurance and courage--even
to heroism--not excelled in the many records of bravery and dangers
undergone by other explorers.

We have now looked through the reports of the country given by many men,
and become familiar with their opinions of the future of the interior;
they are almost unanimous in pronouncing it barren and uninhabitable. We
must remember it was not their want of ability, but their inexperience of
the value of the native grasses and herbs. In comparison with other
countries, they appeared worthless. They did not realize that stocking
would force the waters into natural channels, and that the stock would
bring fresh grasses in their train, getting accustomed to and, after a
while, fattening on the despised bushes and herbs. To them it was the
embodiment of a desert--irreclaimable.

During the time these explorations were in progress, a settlement had
been formed in Western Australia, and some attempt at exploration made,
but for a few years not to any great distance. No difficulties here
presented themselves to a passage through the coast range, and the
country discovered seemed fitted both for pasture and agriculture.

For many years little was done in the way of fresh expeditions, until the
year 1831. Major Mitchell in charge of a party traced the rivers,
discovered by Oxley and Cunningham; his explorations were also surveys
and the river system of the continent was partially worked out, but the
hope of a river running through the interior to the north-west coast bad
to be finally abandoned. His report of the country was also more
favourable, and his after expeditions, merely connecting surveys,
confirming and verifying previous discoveries, rather than an exploration
into the unknown. His reports were glowing of the country passed through
generally; from snow-topped mountains to level plains, watered with
permanent streams and rivers, fitted for immediate occupation of the
grazier or farmer.

Now it may be said the difficulties were overcome of entering the
interior, for it was assailed from three points; Perth on the west, Port
Phillip and St. Vincent's Gulf on the south, and from the settled parts
of New South Wales and Moreton Bay on the east. Henceforth the settler so
promptly followed the explorer, that the country became settled and
stocked almost as quickly as known, and, foot by foot, the desert driven
back.

Grey and Lushington wishing to verify the existence or not of a large
river supposed to empty itself into the sea, at Dampier's Archipelago,
endured great hardships. They were without experience of the colonies, or
of the capabilities of the country; but as far as they could judge,
pronounced the country well grassed and timbered. Their second trip
resulted in the discovery of the Gascoigne, but little else; no great
results to compensate for their terrible suffering and privation.

Small explorations were rapidly carried on to provide for the number of
stock imported and the best stock routes; and now it was time to turn
north, to look for the inland sea and the chain of mountains--Australia's
backbone--that was supposed to exist. E. J. Eyre's discovery of Lake
Torrens turned the colonists' attention north as a practicable stock
route to Western Australia. From the sterile nature of the coast of the
bight, and the absence of any rivers emptying into the sea, it was
useless to seek in that direction. His march round the Great Bight was a
journey of terrible suffering; it certainly proved that no water flowed
into the south coast, and gave us our knowledge of the barren country
shut in by the impenetrable, monotonous cliff line that closed its
secrets against our mariners, but it gave no knowledge of the interior.
After some of his men had deserted, and the one that remained murdered,
Eyre, alone, on foot, with his stubborn courage, wearied out and
starving, followed the coast line for numberless miles. Any errors of
judgment leading to the tragic end of his expedition must needs be
overlooked in the face of the great dangers and the perseverance that
carried him through.


Sturt has been called the father of Australian exploration, and may well
be held as one of our greatest scientific explorers--his object always to
solve the mystery of the great interior; its strange peculiarity and
physical formation. He returned disappointed, baffled. But was he in
reality beaten? He was exceptionally unlucky in his seasons, and the
report of the land he brought back caused settlement to progress slowly;
only after years, when men had grown accustomed to the terrors of the
desert, and knew that experience robbed them of their effect, Sturt
found, but unwittingly, the outflow of the second river system. He longed
to be the first to reach the centre of Australia, and hoped that once
past the southern zone of the tropics he would reach a country blessed
with a heavy and constant rainfall. Always he looked back with pleasure
upon his travels, and said: "My path amongst savage tribes has been a
bloodless one."

Next among our explorers comes Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt, and his trip from
Fort Burke, on the Darling, to the Gulf of Carpentaria, which opened up
so much well-watered country and attracted universal attention; but,
unlike Sturt, he had exceptional good fortune, travelling always through
country easy to penetrate and well watered--not one night had the party
to camp without water.

During this expedition, Sir Thomas Mitchell started with one having
almost the same end in view as Dr. Leichhardt's. He did not reach the
Gulf, but threw open our wonderful western prairies, and found the upper
tributaries of the second great river system. This was his last
expedition, and it fully confirmed his reputation. More fortunate than
Sturt, he had been favoured in having plentiful and bountiful seasons of
water and vegetation; but both men had done wonders in the cause of
exploration. Mitchell's discovery of the Victoria, along the banks of
which river he felt the high road to the north coast was found, was
continued by Kennedy, who had been second in command during the first
expedition of Sir Thomas Mitchell.

With a lightly equipped party Kennedy started to follow the course of the
Victoria. Finally the river led them into the desert described by Sturt:
"Plains gaping with fissures, grassless and waterless," and he turned
back satisfied that the Victoria had not its outflow in the Gulf of
Carpentaria, as hoped for by Sir Thomas Mitchell, but lost itself in
Cooper's Creek. The loss of flour, through the natives, prevented Kennedy
from extending his explorations towards the Gulf.

Kennedy's second trip, to examine Cape York Peninsula, ended most
disastrously. Out of his party of thirteen only two men and a black boy
were rescued. Through marshes and scrubs--seemingly the one monotonous
entry in their journal being, "Cutting scrub all day"--they endeavoured
to push their way to Port Albany, the extreme north of the Peninsula,
where a ship would meet them. Saltwater creeks and marshy ground, with
the ranges inhabited by hostile natives, was their prospect, while their
horses were rapidly failing on the sour coast grasses. From first to last
this was a most unfortunate expedition-the awful and impassable nature of
the country travelled through, the hostile blacks and loss of the horses,
and then, when sickness came upon the little band, it was doomed.

In the south, Baron von Mueller was busy exploring some of the unknown
portion of South Australia and the Australian Alps-botanical and
geographical researches combined. The heights of several of the highest
mountains in Australia were fixed, and geographical positions accurately
placed.

Leichhardt, encouraged by his successes, makes his final venture, but
what befel his party--shall we ever know? It is so late now that we can
entertain little hope of ever elucidating his fate.

In 1846, the Gregory brothers are in the west, led by A. C. Gregory, who
so distinguished himself afterwards as a scientific explorer, and in 1855
he was in command of the North Australian Expedition; with him his
brother and the celebrated botanist Baron Von Mueller. Captain Stokes
reported the Victoria as an important stream, and the probable means of
gaining access to the interior, upon which Gregory traced its course. He
professed great disappointment at the reality of Captain Stokes' "Plains
of Promise," compared to what he had been led to expect. The successful
conclusion of this expedition, which had covered nearly five thousand
miles, proves Gregory an explorer of undoubted qualifications, and it is
to he regretted that so scanty a record of his travels has been
published.

Lake Torrens still occupied the attention of the South Australian
colonists, its probable extent and direction, and several expeditions
were undertaken to solve the question. To the south-east fresh water and
well grassed pastoral country, but Lake Torrens still remained as on its
first discovery by Eyre--a dry bed covered with a thick incrustation of
salt, and far away surrounded on all sides by barren country. Goyder
found fresh water in the lake, but its unavailability was confirmed.

M'Dowall Stuart has been recognised as the man who first crossed from sea
to sea, from the south to the north coast, and now on Stuart's track is
built the overland telegraph line, a lasting witness of his indomitable
perseverance. In his subsequent expeditions following his old tracks, he
was destined to meet success, and come to the sea near the mouth of the
Adelaide River. Stuart dipped his hands and feet in the sea, and his
initials were cut on the largest tree they could find. This was his last
trip, and he never recovered from the great suffering of his return
journey.

The expedition under Burke and Wills left amid great celebration; in
fact, it was a gala day in Melbourne, and their journey through the
settled districts one triumphant march. Their purpose was to cross to
Carpentaria. Fate seemed so propitious that one would think in irony she
laughed, as she thought of their return.

They accomplished their task; they reached the Gulf; but did not know
their exact position; and when they turned back it became a terrible
struggle for existence. In spite of the princely outfit with which they
started, short rations and great hardships was their lot, and the men
tried to live like the blacks, on fish and nardoo, and an occasional crow
or hawk which they shot. Wills met his death alone, while Burke and King
were searching for food, and to him, suffering from such extreme
exhaustion, death must have come as the "comforter." He met it as a
gallant man would, without fear. From his last entries he had given up
hope and waited calmly. Burke died the second day; when King looked at
him in the dawning light, he saw that he was really, alone. Meantime, the
rest of the party were left on Cooper's Creek, and were slowly starving
to death. Parties from all sides were now being equipped to go in search
of them.

M'Kinlay's trip across the continent did great service. It verified
Stuart's report that the country always considered as a terrible desert
was not unfit for all pastoral occupation, and, being an experienced man,
his report carried conviction.

One of the search parties for Burke and Wills was under William
Landsborough, having, through previous explorations, good knowledge of
the country; and another, in charge of Frederick Walker, composed of
native troopers. Now the eastern half of Australia was nearly all known;
it had been crossed and re-crossed from south to north; still, the
distinctive value of the country had yet to be learned, and the delusion
that the sheeps' wool would turn to hair in the torrid north to be given
up. All around the coast settlement was surely and steadily creeping, and
unoccupied country going further back every day.

On the north coast, Burketown, under the care of William Landsbrough, was
growing up, and in the north of Arnheim's Land, M'Kinlay was looking for
a suitable site to establish a port for the South Australian Government.
Somerset was formed on the mainland of Cape York Peninsula, and the
formation of this led to the expedition of the Jardine brothers. The
successful termination of their journey, when we look at the difficulties
through which they passed, and the misfortunes they had to encounter,
merits our greatest admiration; and although it did not result in the
discovery of good pastoral country, still they accomplished their object.

The overland telegraph line, and the small explorations made on either
side of it, led greatly to our knowledge of the interior.

John Forrest made his first important journey in 1869, but found no great
results in good country to the eastward of Perth. Then a journey was made
from Perth to Adelaide by way of the Great Bight--never traversed since
Eyre's journey. Owing to a better equipment, he was able to give a more
impartial report of the country passed through; for Eyre was struggling
for life, and it was natural that nature to him would then look at her
blackest.

Warburton and Giles now occupied attention, and their great hope, the
country between the overland telegraph line and the western settlements.

Warburton's expedition led to the western half of the continent being
condemned as a hopeless desert. He no doubt got into a strip of barren
country, and being so occupied in pressing straight through, devoted no
time to the examination of country on either side.

Giles was twice driven back in his attempts to reach Western Australia.
Then, with an equipment of camels, made a third, and successful, attempt.
No discoveries of any importance were made; the country was suffering
from severe drought.

William Hann, one of the pioneer squatters of the North of Queensland,
took charge of a party sent by the Queensland Government to investigate
the tract of country at the base of Cape York Peninsula, both for its
mineral and other resources. Naming the Palmer, and finding here
prospects of gold, the further examination of the river resulted in the
discovery of what turned out to be one of the richest goldfields in
Queensland.

Again the Queensland Government sent out an expedition, under charge of
W. 0. Hodgkinson, to determine the amount of pastoral country to the west
of the Diamantina River.

Buchanan and F. Scarr next attacked the country between the overland
telegraph line and the Queensland border, and in 1878, Mr Lukin,
proprietor of the COURIER, in Brisbane, organised an expedition for the
purpose of exploring the country in the neighbourhood of a proposed
railway line, which had been inaugurated in Port Darwin, and to find the
nature, value, and geographical features of the unexplored portions.
Under the leadership of Ernest Favenc, the party started from Blackall.
This expedition had the effect of opening up a great area of good
pastoral country, nearly all of which is now stocked.

In 1883, Favenc traced the heads of the rivers running into the Gulf of
Carpentaria, near the Queensland border, and in the year following,
crossed from the Queensland border to the telegraph line, and across the
coast range to the mouth of the Macarthur River. Soon after, the South
Australian Government surveyed this river, and opened it as a port; a
good road was formed from the interior to the coast, and the settlement
of the country followed.

In Western Australia, Alexander Forrest led an expedition from the De
Grey River to the telegraph line, which they reached after a great
struggle. It was a most successful trip, and the district found contains
some of the best country in Western Australia, both for pastoral and
mineral purposes.

Stockdale, with a view to settlement, explored the country in the
neighbourhood of Cambridge Gulf. Landing there by steamer, he began the
journey, which ended in a tragedy. After a hard struggle, he reached the
telegraph line.

McPhee's exploration east of Daly Waters may be said to conclude the
expeditions between the Queensland border and the overland line.

To complete the exploration of Arnheim's Land, the South Australian
Government fitted out an expedition under the guidance of Mr. David
Lindsay, but the country passed over was not available for pastoral
settlement, some of it being good sugar country. Messrs. Carr Boyd and
O'Donnell, undertaking another trip from the Katherine River to Western
Australia, were more fortunate in finding good country, but no
geographical discovery resulted.

Thus our island continent has been opened to us by the indomitable
courage and endurance of navigators and explorers. Can we look for
instances of greater bravery in the exploration of any other portion of
the globe? Our old navigators, with their meagre equipment, searched
minutely every portion of the coast, until the termination of the survey
of the BEAGLE, for the mouth of some river that would communicate with
the interior, as our earlier explorers hoped to find a waterway in the
wilderness through which they travelled.

The idea of the work they did, being verified as it now is, could never
have been dreamt of. Think of Flinders, in the old INVESTIGATOR, as he.
sailed from group to group of islands, and from point to point of reefs;
when he got at last through Torres Straits, and stood down the Gulf,
looking up the old land marks of the early Dutch visitors to our
shores--Duyfhen Point, the Van Alphen River, GROOTE EYLANDT, and the
rest--names still preserved, that bear witness to the brave old navigator
who visited these shores before we did. Many an anxious day and night,
doubtless, he had. Now, with steam at our command, the straits have
become the safe highway of traffic to all the leading marts of the world.

It is well for us to bear in mind that, as a rule, experienced bushmen do
find the best points of new country, and not the worst. The after result
generally is that the discoveries of the first explorers are extended,
but not improved on. Therefore, in comparing the different routes that
traverse the western half of our continent, we can safely allow that each
man found, and noted, the most promising features on his line of travel.

By close comparison of the work done by the men who have laid bare so
many of the secrets of the interior, and by deductions to be drawn from
the physical conformation and climatic peculiarities already revealed, we
may, to some extent, conjecture the possibilities of the future. With
every variety of climate between temperate and tropical, with enormous
mineral treasures--the extent of which, even at the present time, can
only be conjectured--boundless areas of virgin soils, and a coastline
dotted with good harbours and navigable rivers, we have all the elements
of a nation yet to take rank among the recognised powers of the world.
But in the interim there is much to be done. The flat and monotonous
nature of most of the continent, which is at present to a certain extent
our bane, will, when the principles of water storage, and its
distributation are fully understood, be of wonderful assistance. The
physical formation of the interior lends itself to the creation of
artificial channels, and the work of leading waterways through the great
areas of unwatered country, that for months lie useless and unproductive,
will be comparatively easy. We have always, or nearly always, our annual
floods to depend upon, and the supply furnished by them should be amply
sufficient for use. Flood water is surplus water, and its conservation
should be the thing aimed at. Many a dry watercourse, that is now but a
slight depression, could be utilised as a channel for conducting the
flood waters to the back country. What would be impossible in an island
of bold mountain ranges, becomes easy in the flats of our dry interior.

In the dry inland plains, a water supply that will relieve the frontage
from overstocking during the droughty months, means the preservation of
some of our most valuable indigenous fodder plants. The overcrowding of
stock on the natural permanent waters during dry periods, has often been
the cause of a depreciation in the natural grasses on some of our
principal rivers. And whilst this has been going on, sun-cracked lagoons
and lakes, surrounded by good, if dry, feed have been lying unnoticed and
useless, waiting for the time to come when they would be turned to
account.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.