354 



. / ( '.V /'A'. / LA SI A ILL USTRA TED. 



to cling to them, however, with all the pertinacity of despair, until at last he came to be 

 looked upon with feelings of compassion, and was tolerated as a poor dependent. Thus, 

 from the middle of July until the 151)1 of September, John King lived the life of the 

 aborigines, buoyed up by the hope that his fellow-colonists would not suffer him to 

 perish in the wilderness, but would rescue him sooner or later. The narrative would be 

 incomplete if we omitted to mention that the kindly natives were liberally rewarded by 

 the Victorian (.iovernment for the shelter and protection they had afforded to the sole 

 survivor of the expedition. 



After the remains of Wills and Burke had been found and buried, the Contingent 

 H \pedition started on the return journey as far as Menindie, whence Mr. Welch, 

 deputed by his leader to conduct King to Melbourne, set out, while Mr. Howitt 

 remained in camp to rest his men and camels before proceeding further south. Mr. 

 Howitt was subsequently instructed to revisit Cooper's Creek and bring back the bones 

 of the heroic explorers, in order that they might receive a public funeral, which proved 

 to be one of the most impressive spectacles ever witnessed in the capital of Victoria. 



Large sums of money were voted to the nearest of kin of Burke and Wills, and 

 an annuity was settled on King, which he did not live many years to enjoy, his 



constitution having been shattered 

 by the privations and hardships he 

 had undergone ; while the heroic 

 exploit of the two explorers was 

 commemorated by bronze statues of 

 the two men, modelled and cast by 

 the late Charles Summers, and 

 erected in one of the principal 

 thoroughfares of Melbourne, the 

 more 'important incidents in which 

 the leaders had figured being com- 

 memorated by bronze bas-reliefs 

 on the plinth. 



The other search expeditions 

 proved to be the means of adding 

 largely to our knowledge of the 

 interior of the Continent, and of 

 opening up to pastoral settlement 

 enormous areas of country previ- 

 ously believed to be deserts. 

 JOHN KING. Flocks and herds now graze in 



the immediate neighbourhood of 



the spot where Burke and Wills perished, and the names of Landsborough, Walker 

 and McKinlay, like that of Mr.. Alfred Howitt, will ever be honourably associated 

 with those of the heroic men who have just been mentioned as the pioneers of 

 industrial progress and civilization in the heart of this Continent, and whose labours 

 have assisted so materially in its development. Nor must we omit to mention the name 



