Horrors of Australian Discovery. 13 



set on foot for exploring' the unknown regions of Australia in 

 every direction, and although by far the larger part of tlie 

 information collected consists rather of ghastly recitals of 

 misery and privation endured than positive scientific results,* 

 yet some of the more recent ones, especially those of Stuart 



the expedition gradually sank from exhaustion." Almost every day Carron's journal 

 mentions one or the other horse giving in of fatigue, when they were compelled for 

 want of further provision to eat its flesh during the next two days. That of the last 

 was conveyed along by the travellers in sacks, made from the skin of the animal it- 

 self. Whenever they encountered natives, these proved hostile, and assailed the lit- 

 tle caravan with spears. Some of them indeed were more friendly, and traded with 

 the travellers, but less out of sincere hospitality than with the hope of taking them 

 in, and getting them unawares into their power. Thus, on one occasion a number of 

 tall, well-made, powerful men and women made their appearance, and offered them 

 some fish, which they themselves refused to eat owing to its putrified state. Hardly 

 had the travellers approached it, unsuspicious of evil, when a cloud of spears cleft the 

 air with a whistling noise, and the scene, hitherto so friendly and peaceable, became at 

 once a scene of blood and confusion. However, the spear-men seemed to have no 

 gi-eat dexterity ; they usually missed their mark, whereas the flints and double-bar- 

 rels of the whites did deadly execution. One however proved more fatal than the 

 rest, and killed Mr. Kennedy, the chief of the party. They were now only a few 

 days distant from Cape York, the goal of their labours, whence a Government ship was 

 to convey the leader and his party back to Sydney. But the survivors were also all 

 but exhausted with the terrible fatigues of their journey. Only three out of the four- 

 teen survived, and these were reduced almost to skeletons. Carron's elbow-bone of 

 the right arm, and also the bone of the right hip, were through the skin ! (Narrative 

 of an Expedition undertaken under the direction of the late Mr. Assistant Surveyor, 

 E. B. Kennedy, for the Exploration of the Country lying between Rockingham Bay 

 and Cape York ; by W. Carron, one of the survivors of the Expedition. Sydney, 1849.) 



Still more lamentable was the fate of the last and most important of these expe- 

 ditions, which in 1861 succeeded in crossing the Australian continent from the north 

 frontier of South Australia to Carpentaria, and back to Cooper's Creek, in which, un- 

 fortunately, the travellers missed the depot troop that had been sent to their assistance, 

 and the entire party, including Messrs. Burke, Wills, and Gray, lost their lives, only 

 one of their number, King, escaping to tell their sad fate. (Vide Appendix.) 



t* Government has bethought itself of a plan for facilitating discoveries in the in- 

 terior, and rendering them more profitable by importing from Egypt into Australia 

 camels and dromedaries, chiefly of the breed known as El Hura, as these animals can 



