88 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



South Wales. The roseate pictures drawn by him of the beauty, 

 the fertility and the salubrity of the country, which he enthusi- 

 astically named " Australia Felix," attracted the attention not only 

 of those on the spot, but created quite an excitement in England 

 when his volumes were published in London a year or two later. 



The object which Sir Eichard Bourke had in view when he 

 commissioned Major Mitchell to undertake the journey is set out in 

 his despatch to Lord Glenelg on the 15th of March, 1836, in which 

 he says : " He is instructed to finish tracing the Darling, and upon 

 reaching the Murray, into which there is little doubt the Darling 

 falls, to return by the Murray to the located parts of the colony. 

 Sturt, it will be remembered, entered the Murray from the Murrum- 

 bidgee, and no part of the former river above that junction has 

 been traced, unless it should have happened that Messrs. Hume 

 and Hovell crossed upon it in 1824. If the instructions with 

 which the Surveyor- General is furnished be successfully executed, 

 a considerable addition will be made to the geography of the 

 colony in the direction which it is most useful to explore. There 

 is reason to believe that the country on both banks of the Murray, 

 and generally between the Australian Alps and the Murrumbidgee, 

 contains fine pastoral tracts, well watered by streams issuing from 

 those mountains whose summits in one part are usually covered 

 with snow. The eastern side of these mountains is already cele- 

 brated as an admirable grazing country. The downs near Port 

 Phillip have lately become well known for the excellent pasture 

 they afford to sheep. The course pursued by Hovell and Hume 

 in 1824 discovered a great extent of rich land. The general feature 

 and character of the vast extent of country contained within the 

 course of the Murrumbidgee and the sea, from Lake Alexandrina 

 by Wilson's Promontory and Cape Howe to the 35th parallel 

 of latitude in the eastern coast of New Holland, may be in a great 

 measure finally determined by the expedition." It must be ad- 

 mitted that the Governor's ideas were liberal in the matter of 

 space, for the whole area of the colony of Victoria was embraced 

 in only a portion of the country to be examined. 



The party which Major Mitchell commanded consisted of twenty- 

 three men, including an overseer, a medical attendant, a botanist and 



