LE860N8 IN OEOOBAl'lIV. 



21; 



little moro than fourteen months. Many riTera were discovered, 

 whioh wa tho Mackenzie, on whose bank* some good 



i'ls were found, and several tract* of coumtry wore 

 crowed confuting of rich arable land, admirably adapted for 

 .iv'rii-ultiir.il purpose*, lli.s subsequent expedition!, however, 

 IMP.- not attended with the same good fortune. In 1847 he set 

 out on a journey across the Australian continent from Sydney 

 to Swun liioh he waa compelled to abandon by event* 



over which h<> h.i.l no control, after reaching as far as the downs 

 of the Upper Mackenzie and Peak River. Nothing daunted by 

 the uuHucuessf ul result of hi* attempt to traverse Australia, he 



1 once moro on bin great undertaking about the beginning 

 of 1848, from Moreton Bay, only to meet with freah failure and 

 death. From that time nothing hau been heard either of the 



of so barren and desolate a character as had been imagined from 

 the discovery of the great central deiiert by Captain Start in 

 1844. 



To Barke and his companion* belong the honour of baring 

 been the first to make their way from south to north, across the 

 trackless centre of the Australian continent ; but three out of 

 the four were doomed to purchase the distinction they had so 

 gallantly won, at the cost of their lives. Having feasted their 

 eyes with the sight of the blue waters of the Gulf of Carpen- 

 taria, the adventurers, worn and weakened by the privations 

 they had endured, and the fatigues and hardships they had 

 undergone in their journey northwards, turned to retrace their 

 steps. Gray died soon after commencing the march home- 

 wards ; but the three survivors struggled on till, in April, they 



IEEK, AUSTRALIA ; THE SPOT WHERE BURKE AND WILLS DFKD IN 1861. 



leader of the expedition or his companions, and although a few 

 traces of their route after quitting the west bank of the Con- 

 damine River and Fitzroy Downs have been found, nothing 

 definite respecting their fate and what led to the failure of the 

 expedition has ever been discovered. 



The principal journeys of discovery in Australia since the 

 disappearance of Dr. Leichardt hare been the expeditions of 

 Mr. Augustus C. Gregory, in West, North- West, and North Aus- 

 tralia in 1856 and 1858, in which many important discoveries 

 were effected, and the perilous march of Richard O'Hara Burke, 

 and his companions Gray, King, and Wills, across the continent 

 from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860-61. Tho 

 exploring party started from Melbourne on August 10, 1860, 

 and reached the Gulf of Carpentaria, near the embouchure of 

 the Cloncurry River, on February 11, 1861, having passed 

 for miles and miles through a fertile and well-watered country, 

 thus proving that the whole of the interior, at all events, is not 



reached Cooper's Creek, a stream that crosses the boundary line 

 between South Australia and New South Wales, towards its 

 northern limit, where, the year before, Burke had left a few men 

 in charge of a store of provisions. By some sad fatality, the 

 man who had been placed at the head of the little party left to I 

 guard the depot, weary of awaiting the return of the travellers, 

 and thinking that they had all perished, had left the spot only 

 a few hours before Burke and his companions reached it. 

 Knowing that it would be utterly useless to try to overtake 

 them. Burke and his friends directed their steps towards Mount 

 Hopeless, a short range on the west side of Lake Blanch, where 

 they found some settlers who had " squatted" in that locality in 

 as wretched a condition as themselves, without clothes and 

 without food, endeavouring to prolong existence by searching in 

 tho marshes and swamps for a plant called rusrdou, whioh they 

 knew was frequently eaten by the natives when nothing better 

 could be had. Again disappointed of procuring aid. and un- 



