JOURNAL OF EXPEDITIONS 
IN 
CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA, 
IN 1840. 
CHAPTER I. 
ORIGIN OF THE EXPEDITION — CONTEMPLATED EXPLORATION 
TO THE WESTWARD MEETING OF THE COLONISTS AND 
SUBSCRIPTIONS ENTERED INTO FOR THAT PURPOSE 
NOTES ON THE UNFAVOURABLE NATURE OF THE COUNTRY 
TO THE WESTWARD, AND PROPOSAL THAT THE NORTHERN 
INTERIOR SHOULD BE EXAMINED INSTEAD MAKE AN 
OFFER TO THE GOVERNOR TO CONDUCT SUCH AN EXPEDI- 
TION — CAPTAIN STURT ? S LECTURE — INTERVIEW WITH THE 
GOVERNOR, ARRANGEMENT OF PLANS — PREPARATION OF 
OUTFIT — COST OF EXPEDITION — NAME A DAY FOR DE- 
PARTURE PUBLIC BREAKFAST AND COMMENCEMENT OF 
THE UNDERTAKING. 
Before entering upon the account of the expe- 
dition sent to explore the interior of Australia, to 
which the following pages refer, it may perhaps be 
as well to advert briefly to the circumstances which 
led to the undertaking itself, that the public being 
fully in possession of the motives and inducements 
which led me, at a very great sacrifice of my 
private means, to engage in an exploration so 
hazardous and arduous, and informed of the degree of 
confidence reposed in me by those interested in the 
undertaking, and the sanguine hopes and high ex- 
pectations that were formed as to the result, may be 
VOL. i. 
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