CHAPTER XXIV 



THE OVERLANDER 



Almost as soon as Port Phillip and South Australia 

 were colonised, the new class of Overlanders was be- 

 gotten. Exploring Western Australia in the late thirties, 

 Sir George Grey was interested by this striking group. 

 They were men — often capitalists — who drove large 

 flocks of sheep and herds of cattle across country from 

 one colony to another — sometimes across great part 

 of Australia. From New South Wales to Port Philhp 

 and South Australia, and in later days from all parts 

 of Australia to Northern Queensland, they patiently 

 trudged with their stock, following the slow stride of 

 their cattle and the still slower step of their sheep. 

 Among them, probably, he first met with E. J. Eyre, 

 who was subsequently his subordinate officer in South 

 AustraHa, in a post which his overlanding journeys 

 peculiarly quaUfied him to fill, some years afterwards 

 his lieutenant-governor in New Zealand, and long sub- 

 sequently the too-famous Governor of Jamaica. Eyre 

 raced another overlander, Joe Hawdon, with stock from 

 Mount Alexander to Adelaide. It was the beginning 

 of Eyre's remarkable journeys of exploration. For, 

 eager to beat Hawdon, who was following the course 

 of the Murray, Eyre cut across the first big bend the 

 Murray makes to the south, and struck the Wimmera. 

 As if by an enemy, a red herring had been drawn across 

 his trail. Fired by the prospect of tracing the course 

 of the new-found river to the sea, as he probably ima- 

 gined, he followed it down-stream, only to find that it 



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