Discoveries In The Interior 1860-1886
Burke and Wills. In the year 1860 a merchant of Melbourne offered
L1,000 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
L3,400; the Victorian Government voted L6,000, and spent an additional
sum of L3,000 in bringing twenty-six camels from Arabia. Under an
energetic
ommittee 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.
The journey, as far as the Murrumbidgee, lay through settled country,
and was without incident; but, on the banks of that river, quarrelling
began among the party, and Burke dismissed the foreman; Landells then
resigned, and Wills was promoted to be second in command. Burke
committed a great error in his choice of a man to take charge of the
camels in place of Landells. On a sheep station he met with a man named
Wright, who made himself very agreeable; the two were soon great
friends, and Burke, whose generosity was unchecked by any prudence,
gave to this utterly unqualified person an important charge in the
expedition.
On leaving the Murrumbidgee they ascended the Darling, till they reached
Menindie--the place from which Sturt had set out sixteen years before.
Here Burke left Wright with half the expedition, intending himself to
push on rapidly, and to be followed up more leisurely by Wright.
Burke and Wills, with six men and half the camels and horses, set off
through a very miserable country--not altogether barren, but covered
with a kind of pea, which poisoned the horses. A rapid journey brought
them to the banks of Cooper's Creek, where they found fine pastures and
plenty of water. Here they formed a depot and lived for some time,
waiting for Wright, who, however, did not appear. The horses and camels,
by this rest, improved greatly in condition, and the party were in
capital quarters. But Burke grew tired of waiting, and, as he was now
near the centre of Australia, he determined to make a bold dash across
to the Gulf of Carpentaria. He left one of his men, called Brahe, and
three assistants, with six camels and twelve horses, giving them
instructions to remain for three months; and if within that time he did
not return, they might consider him lost, and would then be at liberty
to return to Menindie. On the 16th December Burke and Wills, along with
two men, named King and Gray, started on their perilous journey, taking
with them six camels and one horse, which carried provisions to last for
three months.
Rapid Journey to Gulf of Carpentaria. They followed the broad
current of Cooper's Creek for some distance, and then struck off to the
north, till they reached a stream, which they called Eyre Creek. From
this they obtained abundant supplies of water, and, therefore, kept
along its banks till it turned to the eastward; then abandoning it, they
marched due north, keeping along the 140th meridian, through forests of
boxwood, alternating with plains well watered and richly covered with
grass. Six weeks after leaving Cooper's Creek they came upon a fine
stream, flowing north, to which they gave the name "Cloncurry," and, by
following its course, they found that it entered a large river, on whose
banks they were delighted to perceive the most luxuriant vegetation and
frequent clusters of palm trees. They felt certain that its waters
flowed into the Gulf of Carpentaria, and therefore, by keeping close to
it, they had nothing to fear. But they had brought only three months'
provisions with them; more than half of that time had now elapsed, and
they were still 150 miles from the sea. Burke now lost no time, but
hurried on so fast that, one after another, the camels sank exhausted;
and, when they had all succumbed, Burke and Wills took their only horse
to carry a small quantity of provisions, and, leaving Gray and King
behind, set out by themselves on foot. They had to cross several patches
of swampy ground; and the horse, becoming inextricably bogged, was
unable to go farther. But still Burke and Wills hurried on by themselves
till they reached a narrow inlet on the Gulf of Carpentaria, and found
that the river they had been following was the Flinders, whose mouth had
been discovered by Captain Stokes in 1842. They were very anxious to
view the open sea; but this would have required another couple of days,
and their provisions were already exhausted; they were, therefore,
obliged to hasten back as quickly as possible. The pangs of hunger
overtook them before they could reach the place where King and Gray had
remained with the provisions. Burke killed a snake, and ate a part of
it, but he felt very ill immediately after; and when, at length, they
reached the provisions, he was not able to go forward so quickly as it
was necessary to do, if they wished to be safe. However, they recovered
the horse and camels, which had been greatly refreshed by their rest;
and, by taking easy stages, they managed to move south towards home. But
their hurried journey to the north, in which they had traversed, beneath
a tropical sun, about 140 miles every week, had told severely on their
constitutions; Gray became ill, and it was now necessary to be so
careful with the provisions that he had little chance of regaining his
lost strength. One evening, after they had come to a halt, he was found
sitting behind a tree, eating a little mixture he had made for himself
of flour and water. Burke said he was stealing the provisions, fell upon
him, and gave him a severe thrashing. He seems after this never to have
rallied; whilst the party moved forward he was slowly sinking. Towards
the end of March their provisions began to fail; they killed a camel,
dried its flesh, and then went forward. At the beginning of April this
was gone, and they killed their horse. Gray now lay down, saying he
could not go on; Burke said he was "shamming," and left him. However,
the gentler counsel of Wills prevailed; they returned and brought him
forward. But he could only go a little farther; the poor fellow breathed
his last a day or two after, and was buried in the wilderness. Burke now
regretted his harshness, all the more as he himself was quickly sinking.
All three, indeed, were utterly worn out; they were thin and haggard,
and so weak that they tottered rather than walked along. The last few
miles were very, very weary; but, at last, on the 21st of April, they
came in sight of the depot, four months and a half after leaving it.
Great was their alarm on seeing no sign of people about the place; and,
as they staggered forward to the spot at sunset, their hearts sank
within them when they saw a notice, stating that Brahe had left that
very morning. He would be then only seven hours' march away. The three
men looked at one another in blank dismay; but they were so worn out
that they could not possibly move forward with any hope of overtaking
the fresh camels of Brahe's party. On looking round, however, they saw
the word "dig" cut on a neighbouring tree; and, when they turned up the
soil, they found a small supply of provisions.
Brahe had remained a month and a half longer than he had been told to
wait; and as his own provisions were fast diminishing, and there seemed,
as yet, to be no signs of Wright with the remainder of the expedition,
he thought it unsafe to delay his return any longer. This man Wright was
the cause of all the disasters that ensued. Instead of following closely
on Burke, he had loitered at Menindie for no less than three months and
one week, amusing himself with his friends; and, when he did set out, he
took things so leisurely that Brahe was half-way back to the Darling
before they met.
Sufferings. On the evening when they entered the depot, Burke,
Wills, and King made a hearty supper; then, for a couple of days, they
stretched their stiff and weary limbs at rest. But inaction was
dangerous, for, even with the greatest expedition, their provisions
would only serve to take them safely to the Darling. They now began to
deliberate as to their future course. Burke wished to go to Adelaide,
because, at Mount Hopeless--where Eyre had been forced to turn back in
1840--there was now a large sheep station, and he thought it could not
be more than 150 miles away. Wills was strongly averse to this proposal.
"It is true," he said, "Menindie is 350 miles away, but then we know the
road, and are sure of water all the way." But Burke was not to be
persuaded, and they set out for Mount Hopeless. Following Cooper's Creek
for many miles, they entered a region of frightful barrenness. Here, as
one of the camels became too weak to go farther, they were forced to
kill it and to dry its flesh. Still they followed the creek, till at
last it spread itself into marshy thickets and was lost; they then made
a halt, and found they had scarcely any provisions left, while their
clothes were rotten and falling to pieces. Their only chance was to
reach Mount Hopeless speedily; they shot their last camel, and, whilst
Burke and King were drying its flesh, Wills struck out to find Mount
Hopeless; but no one knew which way to look for it, and Wills, after
laboriously traversing the dry and barren wastes in all directions, came
back unsuccessful. A short rest was taken, and then the whole party
turned southward, determined this time to reach the mount. But they were
too weak to travel fast; day after day over these dreary plains, and
still no sign of a hill; till at length, when they were within fifty
miles of Mount Hopeless, they gave in. Had they only gone but a little
farther, they would have seen the summit of the mountain rising upon the
horizon; but just at this point they lost hope and turned to go back.
After a weary journey, they once more reached the fresh water and the
grassy banks of Cooper's Creek, but now with provisions for only a day
or two. They sat down to consider their position, and Burke said he had
heard that the natives of Cooper's Creek lived chiefly on the seed of a
plant which they called nardoo; so that, if they could only find a
native tribe, they might, perhaps, learn to find sufficient subsistence
from the soil around them. Accordingly, Burke and King set out to seek a
native encampment; and, having found one, they were kindly received by
the blacks, who very willingly showed them how to gather the little
black seeds from a kind of grass which grows close to the ground.
With this information they returned to Wills; and, as the nardoo seed
was abundant, they began at once to gather it; but they found that,
through want of skill, they could scarcely obtain enough for two meals a
day by working from morning till night; and, when evening came, they had
to clean, roast, and grind it; and, besides this, whatever it might have
been to the blacks, to them it was by no means nutritious--it made them
sick, and gave them no strength.
Whilst they were thus dwelling on the lower part of Cooper's Creek,
several miles away from the depot, Brahe had returned to find them and
bring them relief. On his way home he had met with Wright leisurely
coming up, and had hastened back with him to the depot; but when
they reached it they saw no signs of Burke and Wills, although the
unfortunate explorers had been there only a few days before. Brahe,
therefore, concluded that they were dead, and once more set out for
home. Meanwhile Burke thought it possible that a relief party might in
this way have reached the creek, and Wills volunteered to go to the
depot to see if any one was there. He set out by himself, and after
journeying three or four days reached the place; but only to find it
still and deserted. He examined it carefully, but could see no trace of
its having been recently visited; there could be no advantage in
remaining, and he turned back to share the doom of his companions. He
now began to endure fearful pangs from hunger. One evening he entered an
encampment that had just been abandoned by the natives, and around the
fire there were some fish bones, which he greedily picked. Next day he
saw two small fish floating dead upon a pool, and they made a delicious
feast; but, in spite of these stray morsels, he was rapidly sinking from
hunger, when suddenly he was met by a native tribe. The black men were
exceedingly kind; one carried his bundle for him, another supported his
feeble frame, and gently they led the gaunt and emaciated white man to
their camp. They made him sit down and gave him a little food. Whilst he
was eating he saw a great quantity of fish on the fire. For a few
minutes he wondered if all these could possibly be for him, till at
length they were cooked and the plentiful repast was placed before him.
The natives then gathered round and clapped their hands with delight
when they saw him eat heartily. He stayed with them for four days, and
then set out to bring his friends to enjoy likewise this simple
hospitality. It took him some days to reach the place where he had left
them; but when they heard his good news they lost no time in seeking
their native benefactors. Yet, on account of their weakness, they
travelled very slowly, and when they reached the encampment it was
deserted. They had no idea whither the natives had gone. They struggled
a short distance farther; their feebleness overcame them, and they were
forced to sink down in despair. All day they toiled hard to prepare
nardoo seed; but their small strength could not provide enough to
support them. Once or twice they shot a crow, but such slight repasts
served only to prolong their sufferings. Wills, throughout all his
journeyings, had kept a diary, but now the entries became very short; in
the struggle for life there was no time for such duties, and the grim
fight with starvation required all their strength.
At this time Wills records that he cannot understand why his legs are so
weak; he has bathed them in the stream, but finds them no better, and he
can hardly crawl out of the hut. His next entry is, that unless relief
comes shortly he cannot last more than a fortnight. After this his mind
seems to have begun to wander; he makes frequent and unusual blunders in
his diary. The last words he wrote were that he was waiting, like Mr.
Micawber, for something to turn up, and that, though starving on nardoo
seed was by no means unpleasant, yet he would prefer to have a little
fat and sugar mixed with it.
Death of Burke and Wills. Burke now thought that their only chance
was to find the blacks, and proposed that he and King should set out for
that purpose. They were very loath to leave Wills, but, under the
circumstances, no other course was possible. They laid him softly within
the hut, and placed at his head enough of nardoo to last him for eight
days. Wills asked Burke to take his watch, and a letter he had written
for his father; the two men pressed his hands, smoothed his couch
tenderly for the last time, and set out. There, in the utter silence of
the wilderness, the dying man lay for a day or two: no ear heard his
last sigh, but his end was as gentle as his life had been free from
reproach.
Burke and King walked out on their desperate errand. On the first day
they traversed a fair distance; but, on the second, they had not
proceeded two miles when Burke lay down, saying he could go no farther.
King entreated him to make another effort, and so he dragged himself to
a little clump of bushes, where he stretched his limbs very wearily. An
hour or two afterwards he was stiff and unable to move. He asked King to
take his watch and pocket-book, and, if possible, to give them to his
friends in Melbourne; then he begged of him not to depart till he was
quite dead: he knew he should not live long, and he should like some one
to be near him to the last. He spoke with difficulty, but directed King
not to bury him, but to let him lie above the ground, with a pistol in
his right hand. They passed a weary and lonesome night; and in the
morning, at eight o'clock, Burke's restless life was ended. King
wandered for some time forlorn, but, by good fortune, he stumbled upon
an abandoned encampment, where, by neglect, the blacks had left a bag of
nardoo, sufficient to last him a fortnight; and, with this, he hastened
back to the hut where Wills had been laid. All he could do now, however,
was to dig a grave for his body in the sand, and, having performed that
last sad duty, he set out once more on his search, and found a tribe,
differing from that which he had already seen. They were very kind, but
not anxious to keep him, until, having shot some birds and cured their
chief of a malady, he was found to be of some use, and soon became a
great favourite with them. They made a trip to the body of Burke, but,
respecting his last wishes, they did not seek to bury it, and merely
covered it gently with a layer of leafy boughs.
Relief Parties. When Wright and Brahe returned to Victoria with the
news that, though it was more than five months since Burke and Wills had
left Cooper's Creek, there were no signs of them at the depot, all the
colonies showed their solicitude by organising parties to go to the
relief of the explorers, if, perchance, they should be still alive.
Victoria was the first in the field, and the Royal Society equipped a
small party, under Mr. A. W. Howitt, to examine the banks of Cooper's
Creek. Queensland offered five hundred pounds to assist in the search,
and with this sum, an expedition was sent to examine the Gulf of
Carpentaria. Landsborough, its leader, was conveyed in the Victoria
steamer to the gulf, and followed the Albert almost to its source, in
hopes that Burke and Wills might be dwelling with the natives on that
stream. Walker was sent to cross from Rockhampton to the Gulf of
Carpentaria; he succeeded in reaching the Flinders River, where Burke
and Wills had been; but, of course, he saw nothing of them. M'Kinlay was
sent by South Australia to advance in the direction of Lake Torrens and
reach Cooper's Creek. These various expeditions were all eager in
prosecuting the search, but it was to Mr. Howitt's party that success
fell. In following the course of Cooper's Creek downward from the depot
he saw the tracks of camels, and by these he was led to the district in
which Burke and Wills had died.
Several natives, whom he met, brought him to the place where, beneath a
native hut, King was sitting, pale, haggard, and wasted to a shadow. He
was so weak that it was with difficulty Howitt could catch the feeble
whispers that fell from his lips; but a day or two of European food
served slightly to restore his strength. Howitt then proceeded to the
spot where the body of Wills was lying partly buried, and, after reading
over it a short service, he interred it decently. Then he sought the
thicket where the bones of Burke lay with the rusted pistol beside them,
and, having wrapped a union jack around them, he dug a grave for them
hard by.
Three days later the blacks were summoned, and their eyes brightened at
the sight of knives, tomahawks, necklaces, looking-glasses, and so
forth, which were bestowed upon them in return for their kindness to
King. Gay pieces of ribbon were fastened round the black heads of the
children, and the whole tribe moved away rejoicing in the possession of
fifty pounds of sugar, which had been divided among them.
When Howitt and King returned, and the sad story of the expedition was
related, the Victorian Government sent a party to bring the remains of
Burke and Wills to Melbourne, where they received the melancholy honours
of a public funeral amid the general mourning of the whole colony. In
after years, a statue was raised to perpetuate their heroism and testify
to the esteem with which the nation regarded their memory.
M'Douall Stuart. Burke and Wills were the first who ever crossed
the Australian Continent; but, for several years before they set out,
another traveller had, with wonderful perseverance, repeatedly attempted
this feat. John M'Douall Stuart had served as draughtsman in Sturt's
expedition to the Stony Desert, and he had been well trained in that
school of adversity and sufferings. He was employed, in 1859, by a
number of squatters, who wished him to explore for them new lands in
South Australia, and having found a passage between Lake Eyre and Lake
Torrens, he discovered, beyond the deserts which had so much
disheartened Eyre, a broad district of fine pastoral land.
Next year the South Australian Government offered L2,000 as a reward to
the first person who should succeed in crossing Australia from south to
north; and Stuart set out from Adelaide to attempt the exploit. With
only two men he travelled to the north, towards Van Diemen's Gulf, and
penetrated much farther than Sturt had done in 1844. Indeed, he was only
400 miles from the other side of Australia, when the hostility of the
blacks forced him to return: he succeeded, however, in planting a flag
in the centre of the continent, at a place called by him Central Mount
Stuart. Next year he was again in the field, and following exactly the
same course, approached very near to Van Diemen's Gulf; being no more
than 250 miles distant from its shores, when want of provisions forced
him once more to return. The report of this expedition was sent to Burke
and Wills, just before they set out from Cooper's Creek on their fatal
trip to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
It was not until the following year, 1862, that Stuart succeeded in his
purpose. He had the perseverance to start a third time, and follow his
former route; and on this occasion he was successful in reaching Van
Diemen's Gulf, and returned safely, after having endured many sufferings
and hardships.
His triumphal entry into Adelaide took place on the very day when
Howitt's mournful party entered that city, bearing the remains of Burke
and Wills, on their way to Melbourne. Stuart then learnt that these
brave explorers had anticipated him in crossing the continent, for they
had reached the Gulf of Carpentaria in February, 1861; whilst he did not
arrive at Van Diemen's Gulf until July, 1862. However, Stuart had shown
so great a courage, and had been twice before so near the completion of
his task, that every one was pleased when the South Australian
Government gave him the well-merited reward.
Warburton. In a subsequent chapter it will be told how a line of
telegraph was, in 1872, constructed along the track followed by Stuart;
and as the stations connected with this line are numerous, it is now an
easy matter to cross the continent from south to north. But in recent
years a desire has arisen among the adventurous to journey overland from
east to west. Warburton, in 1873, made a successful trip of this kind.
With his son, two men, and two Afghans to act as drivers of his
seventeen camels, he started from Alice Springs, a station on the
telegraph line close to the tropic of Capricorn.
The country immediately round Alice Springs was very beautiful, but a
journey of only a few days served to bring the expedition into a dry and
barren plain, so desolate that Warburton declared it could never be
traversed without the assistance of camels. After travelling about four
hundred miles, he reached those formidable ridges of fiery red sand in
which the waters of Sturt's Creek are lost, and where A. C. Gregory was
in 1856 compelled to turn back. In traversing this district, the party
suffered many hardships; only two out of seventeen camels survived, and
the men were themselves frequently on the verge of destruction. It was
only by exercising the greatest care and prudence that Warburton
succeeded in bringing his party to the Oakover River, on the north-west
coast, and when he arrived once more in Adelaide it was found that he
had completely lost the sight of one eye.
Giles and Forrest. Towards the close of the same year, 1873, a young
Victorian named Giles started on a similar trip, intending to cross from
the middle of the telegraph line to West Australia. He held his course
courageously to the west, but the country was of such appalling
barrenness that, after penetrating half-way to the western coast, he
was forced to abandon the attempt and return. But when three years
afterwards he renewed his efforts, he succeeded, after suffering much
and making long marches without water. He had more than one encounter
with the natives, but he had the satisfaction of crossing from the
telegraph line to the West Australian coast, through country never
before traversed by the foot of civilised man. In 1874 this region
was successfully crossed by Forrest, a Government surveyor of West
Australia, who started from Geraldton, to the south of Shark Bay, and,
after a journey of twelve hundred miles almost due east, succeeded in
reaching the telegraph line. His entry into Adelaide was like a
triumphal march, so great were the crowds that went out to escort him to
the city. Forrest was then a young man, but a most skilful and sagacious
traveller. Lightly equipped, and accompanied by only one or two
companions, he has on several occasions performed long journeys through
the most formidable country with a celerity and success that are indeed
surprising.
His brother, Alexander Forrest, and a long list of bold and skilful
bushmen, have succeeded in traversing the continent in every direction.
It is not all desert. They have found fine tracts of land in the course
of their journeys. Indeed, more than half of the recently explored
regions are suitable for sheep and cattle, but there are other great
districts which are miserable and forbidding. However, thanks to the
heroic men whose names have been mentioned, and to such others as the
Jardine Brothers, Ernest Favenc, Gosse, and the Baron von Mueller,
almost the whole of Australia is now explored. Only a small part of
South Australia and the central part of West Australia remain unknown.
We all of us owe a great debt of gratitude to the men who endured so
much to make known to the world the capabilities of our continent.