The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888

e of the interior-Bunbury, Wilson, and Moore-Settlement on the North Coast-Melville Island and Raffles Bay-An escaped convict's story-The fabulous Kindur River-Major Mitchell starts in search of it-Di

ts junction with that river-Fort Bourke-Progress down the river-Hostility of the natives-Skirmish with them-Return-Mitchell's

ker, destined to meet a violent death at the mouth of the Murray. In 1828, Captain Stirling, in the SUCCESS, visited the coast, and made a close examination of the Swan River. He was accompanied by Frazer the botanist, who had now been present at the opening of a great deal of new country. Stirling's report was a favourable one, and the Home Govern

the colonists were promised land in proportion to the capital they brought into the country

eastward for one hundred miles, as far as Mount Stirling, and northward for some sixty miles or

old one of King George's Sound; and, although he made no important discover

were experienced in passing the coast range, as had been the great obstacle of the early explorers in New South Wales. Unfortunately, however, the comparatively lower altitude of the Darling Range led to there being no such flow of water inland as even those disappo

ury, Wilson, and Moore made other explorations, more or less succeeding in the purposes they had in view; but they all embraced so small

formed on the northern coast of Australia; but o

lying off the coast. These islands, Melville and Bathurst, are separated from each other by a narrow strait that Captain King, the discoverer, mistook for a river. On Melville Island a favourable site with abundance of fresh water was found, and the usual routine of taking possession and forming an encampment gone through, and for a time things seemed to prosper; the

ifted and unfortunate Captain Barker. A blight of stagnation seemed in those days to hang over all attempts at settl

watershed of the Darling, and the additional links

tive and highly-coloured fabrication that he related on his return, was probably invented in order to save his back, but at any rate it was plausible enough to induce the Government to dispatch an expedition to investigate the matter. This was his story. He started from Liverpool Plains, and followed a river called by the natives the GNAMOI or NAMMOY, into which he said that Oxley's river Peel flowed. Crossing this he struck another river, the KINDUR, and down this stream h

oloured men who came in large canoes to the mainland for scented wood. In addition he introduced various details of large plains, BALYRAN, t

on the scene one of the most noted figures of the pas

ed the Namoi River on the 16th. After penetrating some distance into a range, which he called the Nundawar Range, he made back for the Namoi, and proceeded to set up the canvas boats he had with him, intending to try to follow the river in them. His attempt was fruitless, one of the boats was soon snagged, and it became evident that it would be much easier to follow the Namoi on horseback. Leaving the river, after passing the range he had vainly tried

us laid down the course and direction of these two large rivers, altho

, Finch, who was bringing on additional supplies, with the disastrous news that the blacks had attacked his camp during a temporary absence, murdered the two men, robbed the supplies, and dispersed the c

. Mitchell travelled, as it were, a more inland but parallel track, crossing the rivers much lower down. Thus the Field River of Oxley is the NAMOI of Mitchell, Cunningham's Gwydir is recogni

ond Range, Mitchell's first contribution to Au

ulf. Being unsuccessful he crossed the range and paid a visit to the lake. Anxious to obtain some bearings, he swam across the channel connecting the lake with the sea in order to ascend the sandhills on the opposite side. His companions watched him take several bearings from the top of the hill, descend out of view on the other side, and he was never seen again. One of the sealers from Kangaroo

for one, had an entirely different theory on the subject embracing the existence of a. dividing range between the Macquarie and Lachlan rivers which would entirely preclude the Darling and Murray from joining.

eyor-General, which will partly explain the presence of the large body of men and equipage which it was his custom to t

ory of the two rivers running through distinctly different basins), Mr. Dixon was sent out in 1833. This gentleman, however, for some reason did not adhere to his instructions; he followed down the Macquarie for s

he members is a long one. We who live in the days of well-equipped small parties, composed of reliable, experienced men only, would feel considerably handicapped with such a retinue. In addition t

ving the party, doubtless on some scientific quest, during the morning of the 17th of April, whils

le supply of provisions to follow the tracks until they found Cunningham, alive or dead. Three days later they returned, having found the horse he had ridden, dead, with the saddle and bridle still on. Mitchell returned to the search once more; the lost man's trail was again picke

peared near some recent fires where many natives had been encamped. Close to one of these fires they found a portion of the skirt or selvage of Cunningham's coat, numerous small fragment

es, accelerated his fate, by rendering the work of the tracking party so much more tedious and difficult. Had

ecognised by all the former members of the party as the "Karaula," from the peculiar attributes that characterised it. On tasting the water, they were agreeably surprised to find it fresh and sweet. The state of the country now was very different from what it was when Sturt was

ture, indeed such excellent grass as we had not seen in the whole journey, covered the fine forest ground on the bank of t

he formation of a dep?t, a stockade of logs was e

H. H. by Hume, at Sturt's limit, and they now noticed that in places the river water was salt or brackish. On the 11th of July, after following the course of the river for three hundred miles, and ascertaining beyond all doubt that it must be identical with the junction in the Murray, noticed by Captain Sturt, Mitchell determined to return; the unvarying sameness of the country they had travelled over holding forth no hope of any important discovery being made, in the space intervening between their lowest camp and Sturt'

burning the grass.] they were so barbarously and implacably hostile, and shamelessly dishonest, and so little influenced by reaso

an who was carrying it; and on being resisted he struck him senseless with his nulla-nulla. The companion of the wounded man shot King Peter in the groin, and his majesty tumbled into the river and swam across. The tribe now advanced against them, and two shots were fired in self defence, one of which accidentally wounded a gin. Three

ch was kept up, but no attack was made

rked up to a sentimental pitch by hearing some gins

eed liable to pay dear for geographical discovery, when my honour and character were delivered over

he men to use their weapons to save their own lives; the reflections then, on their humani

ney to Fort Bourke was unmarked by anything of interest. From Fort Bourke they returned, partly along their outward track, t

y junction on the south. It was now satisfactorily settled that this river was the channel that received all the tributary streams flowing westward-so far north, at any rate, as Cunningham's re

e far interior; although the true character of the country had yet to be learnt and appreciated. His stay on the banks

ns, and his record of his intercourse with them, which occupies so large a portion of his journals, was interesting then, when so little had been

ore of a connecting survey, confirming and verifying previous discoveries, than a fresh departu

to the point where his last journey terminated, he was to trace the Darling into the Murray, and crossing his party over that river by

with the Morumbidgee or Murrumbidgee, as it was now called, and it was supposed th

ks in good condition were in consequence hard to obtain; but no expense was spared by the Government i

er and country, Major Mitchell dep

ning,' as the sun rose over the beleagured towers of Badajoz. Now, without any of the 'pride, pomp, and circumstances of glorious war,' I was proceedi

ons, and then he was at the point where Oxley had left the river and turned south to avoid the flooded marshes. Oxley wrote of a co

ll along the Lachlan, and, notwithstanding the very

explorations, that the country, save for the few land-marks afforded by the hills here and there, could scarcely be recognised from his description. Mitchell seems to have been strongly imbued with two leading ideas, one being the existence of well-defined mountain chains in the interior, form

pylton, a surveyor, and his company consisted of Burnett, the ove

ray discovered by him, was the confluence of the Darling and the Murray. During his journey down the Lachlan he returns to this idea again

urray, now admitted of little doubt, and the continuation of the survey

chlan, he

re to the westward, as to have been taken for the Darling by Captain Sturt. Should I succeed in reaching the Lachlan at about sixty miles west of my camp, I might be satisfied that it was this river which Captain Sturt mistook for the Darling, and then I might seek that river b

credit for his discovery, until he had actually seen the two rivers u

point on the river, where he had given up the quest as hopeless amid the shallow, stagnant lagoons that then covered the face of the country. The tree marked by Oxley himself was not found, it having been, as was ascertained, burnt down by the blacks, and

From his intercourse with the native inhabitants, Mitchell was now convinced that the Lachlan or Kalare would soon join the Murrumbidgee, so that when on

nction of the Darling, as he would have to return again, a dep?t was formed, and the men divided. Mitc

of other tribes, had come a distance of over two hundred miles to settle the old score between them. At first a kind of hollow truce was maintained, but this evidently could not la

f the tracks; this ambuscade, however, was scented out by the dogs accompanying the blacks, and the natives halted, poising their spears. One of the men hastily fired, and a retreat was made for the bank of the river by the blacks. The scrub party followed them up firing, and no sooner d

with one disfigured eye, and her attitude, as she stood there with the naked weapon in her h

be in order to provoke a battle with the whites, and boasting that formerly they had driven them back from the Darling, was a blow that they could not get over, and the result was that the whites were not again molested. It

He returned and examined the junction, which he says he recognised from the view given in Captain Sturt's work [Note, end of paragraph] and the adjacent localities described by him. Full of anxiety for the

ng of it in my first work. As I have since been on the spot, I am sorry to say that it is not at all like the place, because it obliges me to reject the only praise Sir Thomas Mitchell ever gave me."

party was unchecked. On the 8th of July, the Loddon was discovered and named, and on the 10th, the Avoca. Mitchell was now convinced that he had found the Eden of Australia, and his enthusiasm in describing it is unbounded. On the 18th of July, he discovered the Wimmera, and on the 31st, the Glenelg. Here he laun

some small supplies, and again left on their homeward journey. On the 4th September Mitchell abandoned one of his boats, in order to lighten his equipage, as the draught work was excessively h

he animals, leaving Stapylton and the remainder of the party t

cended Mount Macedon, an

Phi

ugh at the highest northern point of the bay I saw a mass of

amongst his party. On October 13th, when looking for a crossi

oat was sunk in a deep lagoon, and the boat carriage left on the bank for the use of Stapylton. Three volunteers went back to meet him, and assist in crossing the Ovens and Goulburn. The ad

-topped mountains to level plains, watered by permanently-flowing stream and rivers; fitted, as he says, for the immediate occupation of the grazier, and th

e; flowing either into that river, or into the sea; confirming the impression already entertained of the great value of the distri

ent would soon have thrown open for settlement the splendid area that Mitchell was just in time to claim as his discovery. The story of Batman's compact with the blacks, by which he asserted his right to a prince

Mowstrip, and Mommamala, the price was fixed at an annuity of two hundred a year, in return for 750,000 acres of land. Mr. Gellibrand afterwards perished in the bush with a comp

illip was abandoned, almost without the slightest examination, by Colonel Collins in favour of Tasmania, and now, after thirty ye

covery of Buckley, a white man, who having escaped from Colli

the site of the present city of Adelaide; Governor Hindmarsh and a company of

ern shore, from St. Vincent's Gulf and Port Phillip on the south, and from

one man, hopelessly endeavouring to surmount the coast range, or toiling across the western plains, anxiously watched by the little community

should the adventurer remain some months absent from civilization, he found, on his return, settlement far across what had been the frontier line when he departed. Hundreds of lives have been laid down in this service, under as strong a sense of duty, and under circumstances as heroic as any of the deaths in the roll of martial history, and the names of the victims unknown, and the