VI 
PREFACE. 
to attend to the publication of his travels earlier, 
nor indeed can he regret a delay, which by the 
facilities it afforded him of acquiring a more intimate 
knowledge of the character and habits of the Abo- 
rigines, has enabled him to render that portion of 
his work which relates to them more comprehen- 
sive and satisfactory than it otherwise would have 
been. 
With respect to the second point, or the reasons 
which have led to this work being published at 
all, the author would observe that he has been 
led to engage in it rather from a sense of duty, 
and at the instance of many of his friends, than 
from any wish of his own. The greater portion 
of the country he explored was of so sterile and 
worthless a description, and the circumstances 
which an attempt to cross such a desert region led 1 
to, were of so distressing a character, that he would 
not willingly have revived associations, so unsatis- 
factory and so painful. 
It has been his fate, however, to cross, during the 
course of his explorations, a far greater extent of 
country than any Australian traveller had ever done 
previously, and as a very large portion of this had 
never before been trodden by the foot of civilized 
man, and from its nature is never likely to be so in- 
vaded again, it became a duty to record the know- 
ledge which was thus obtained, for the information 
of future travellers and as a guide to the scientific 
world in their inquiries into the character and for- 
mation of so singular and interesting a country. 
