36 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



came for me to bring back my party, and having left a cache of things 

 for any of the parties still out who might come that way, I made a 

 short cut to Lake Hope across 90 miles of waterless sandhills. When 

 I got there I was interviewed, as it would now be said, by a deputation 

 of the old men of that part of the Dieri tribe, who made two requests. 

 This was done by the head man, no less than the well-known Jalina 

 Piramurana, whose acquaintance I had made on one of my trips to 

 and from Blanchewater. The first request was that I should go with 

 them and kill the Koonabm'a men, who were very bad people, and 

 that then he and the other men of the Bando-pinna (Lake Hope) 

 would bury them and take the women. The second request was that 

 I would tell the whitefellow, who they heard was coming up to " sit 

 down " at Lake Hope, that he should remain on the one side of the 

 lake and they would remain on the other. The first request I put 

 off as a kind of joke, and the second I promised to attend to if I saw 

 the whitefellow on my way down to Adelaide. A strong commentary 

 on the Koonabura request was made when we camped on the other 

 side of the lake the next afternoon, for we saw a large number of armed 

 blacks trooping over the sandhills towards our camp. My friend 

 Jalina said, " Koonabura kana" — that is, the Koonabura men. I 

 thought that we should now see a fight, but behold ! when they 

 reached the camp, they and the Lake Hope men all fraternised. I 

 had heard before, from the Yantruwunta blacks of the Cooper, about 

 the " tiira-pinnana " of the Dieri — that is, their quarrelsome character 

 — and could now well believe it. 



The return of all the search parties terminated the episode of the 

 Burke and Wills Expedition : the eastern half of the continent had 

 been crossed and recrossed. It was no longer considered an unknown 

 and desert tract, but a pastoral region of the greatest possibilities, to 

 be occupied by adventurous pastoral pioneers. 



In South Australia the veteran explorer, John McDouall Stuart, 

 by his persistent and determined explorations, had made his way 

 across the continent to the Indian Ocean, thus marking out the track 

 along which the transcontinental telegraph line was successfully laid 

 by South Australia — a work of national importance, with Avhich the 

 name of Sir Charles Todd will always be connected. 



Thus closed what I may call the middle chapter of Australian 

 exploration. The next era, thanks to the great public and private 

 generosity of this State, sent forth a new generation of explorers, 

 represented by Giles, Gosse, Tietkins, Lewis, and many others, 

 thoroughly trained and efficient bushmen, who have left little unknown 

 of the former mystery of Central Australia. 



