EARLY AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATION. u 3 



Sturt on his first expedition into the interior, and Hovell was one of the early settlers 

 who left Sydney with Wright and Wetherall's party in the Fly, to forestall the French 

 in their intentions on the southern coast by the establishment of a ctipot at Western Port. 



PROCRKSS OK EXPLORATION FROM 1828. 



The discoveries of Oxley and Cunningham, Hume and Hovell, greatly increased the 

 knowledge of the interior, and subsequent expeditions were to a considerable extent 

 divested of that keen commercial interest with which the settlers, anxious to enlarge their 

 pastures, regarded the previous efforts to find the fabled El Dorado supposed to lie 

 beyond the Great Dividing Range. 



Captain Sturt and Hamilton Hume, in the year 1828, conducted an expedition to 

 the head of the Macquarie, and following that river in a north-westerly direction 

 discovered successively the Bogan and the Darling, the latter being famed as the third 

 longest river in the world, taking precedence of the Nile. In the following year Captain 

 Sturt, with a well-equipped party, again set out, and sailing down the Murrumbidgee, 

 reached the River Murray and followed its course to Lake Alexandrina discovering 

 while en route the debouchure of the Darling. He returned by the same route, having 

 explored the entire course of the Murray from its junction with the Murrumbidgee. A 

 year after this remarkable journey of Sturt's, Captain Barker and Mr. Kent conducted 

 an examination of the district round Lake Alexandrina. During the survey, Barker was 

 murdered by the blacks, after having sighted the country upon which now stands the city 

 of Adelaide and its suburbs. 



In the year 1831, Major Mitchell went on a northern expedition in the direction of 

 the Liverpool Plains, and traversed the country bounded by the Namoi, Darling and 

 Gwydir Rivers and the Liverpool Ranges, following the Gwydir as far as the Macintyre, 

 one of the first tributaries of importance to the Darling. A volunteer, named Finch, 

 and two men had been sent by Mitchell from the Peel to the Hunter for stores, but 

 the men were surprised and murdered by the blacks, and the stores rifled, while Finch 

 was absent from the camp. Mitchell began his second expedition in the month of March, 

 1835. Setting out in command of a large party of men, with drays, horses and a couple 

 of boats, he followed the courses of the Darling and Bogan, and made an exhaustive 

 survey of the country lying between those rivers. During this journey he was unfortunate 

 in losing, near the Bogan, Richard Cunningham, the brother of that celebrated botanist 

 who accompanied Oxley on his first expedition into the interior. This enthusiastic scientist, 

 engrossed in the study of botanical specimens, wandered from his party and was found by the 

 blacks, who murdered him when he was delirious, being frightened at his strange behaviour. 



A third expedition was directed to the Darling and Murray Rivers in the same 

 year. This was the most famous of all Mitchell's journeys inland, and resulted in the 

 discovery of Australia Felix. After following the course of the Lachlan to its debouchure 

 in the Murrumbidgee, he passed through the Murray scrubs, and arrived at the junction 

 of the latter river with the Darling. In exploring up the stream the mouth of the 

 Edwards was 'passed without observation ; but the Loddon, emptying on the opposite 

 side, was fully examined, and its course followed south-east for three days. Leaving 

 Pyramid Creek and Mount Hope behind him, Mitchell explored across that vast tract of 



