eed n Re A ee T 
proceed from Sydney, and the direction of 
- the party being confided to Major Mitchell, 
the able Surveyor-General of the Terri- 
tory, Mr. Cunningham was invited by that 
officer to accompany the Expedition in the 
quality of Botanist. The permission of the 
deal Goverment having been obtained, he 
made arrangements for the management of 
ode tunic Garden during his absence, 
and most gladly joined Major Mitchell to 
investigate the Botany of internal regions, 
py unknown to us. 
. In the beginning of April he left Sydney 
T ET that important service, and having pass- 
ed the Blue Mountain Range to the western 
2^ country, joined the party (of twenty-two 
persons) previously despatched, at Boree, 
 &station on the North-West of the settle- 
ment of Bathurst. Being fully acquainted 
th the discoveries already made by his 
fir whilst on expeditions of a similar 
Mature, since the earliest under the direc- 
iw of the indefatigable Oxley, in 1817, 
* was well prepared to pronounce on any 
Actual discovery of his own, in the coun- 
_ try, beyond the last step of previous enter- 
 prizing explorers, and therefore his attach- 
"riri € into spirits, as I should have done, 
e I send will suffice to determine the 
ought hom 
e a growing specimen with 
MN. in likel 
to 
Do 4 
succeed in the Botanic 
pr Lindley has written to Dr. Bowman, who is 
8 to present arrangements, I am to start 
the 2nd 
of March, with Major Mitchell, Surveyor- 
THE LATE MR. RICHARD CUNNINGHAM. 
219 
ment to this considerable party was con- 
nected with many a pleasurable anticipa- 
tion. 
With such eminent qualifications to pro- 
secute botanical investigation in the new 
country before him, with great zeal and 
patience to pursue it, and moreover, wi 
a physical strength of constitution that 
rendered him fully able to combat the se- 
verest fatigues and privations to which all 
persons traversing an arid previously un- 
trodden country are more or less subjected, 
our traveller appeared, however, to want 
one requisite, very essential to explorers 
who have to thread trackless wooded coun- 
tries, oftentimes as in the case of New Hol- 
land, striking only for their gloomy moun- 
tainous aspect. This was the faculty by 
which a recognition of spots, previously 
seen, is effected with facility. The indi- 
vidual thus gifted with what our French 
neighbours call “le compas dans la tête,” 
is by it enabled to penetrate with the ut- 
most confidence a level closely-timbered 
district, in configuration of surface, alike 
for one or for fifty miles, and with perfect 
precision to trace his footsteps back to the 
point he had originally left. To employ 
the language of the Phrenologist, the organ 
of locality was exceeding small, if at all 
developed, in the subject of our Memoir. 
General of this Great South à on the grand jour- 
ney, of which so much has been talked ever siad my 
arrival in this colony. I cannot, however e par- 
€— what our route will ^de but Major ‘Michal 
most anxious to make a push for the Swan River 
otis ent. This, if it can be effected, with the spur 
which the expected arrival of our new southern neigh- 
bours will give to geographical discovery, bids fair to 
throw open a considerable portion of the unknown 
Interior of this vast territory during the current year. 
the Go- 
Diemen's Land. 
desire of His Ezoellenoy, t to ipm what botanical 
but I think, without 
e able to ies that far better col- 
of an exploring expedition, than by sending a com- 
mission to obtain them by nins ase. dio will be glad 
o 
a ( A 
in ^ut Botanic Garden here for the first ti 
