The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work

me, in his

LY ACHIE

18th of June. He seems to have been specially marked out by Nature for prominence as an explorer, for, from his earliest boyhood he was fond of rambling through the bush, and his father encouraged him in his desire for a free country

ley, too, held a farm in the Illawarra district, and the Surveyor-General, who must have heard of Hamilton's repute for good bushmanship, engaged him to go out with his overseer and guide the men on to the locality. Governor Macquarie also seems to have had his attention drawn to the same conspicuous quality, for he sent young Hume out with Meehan, a surveyor, and Throsby to examine the country about the Shoalhaven River. On the way, however, Throsby disagreed with Meehan about the course they

hen in 1823 Captain Currie and Major Ovens were led along its bank on to the beautiful Maneroo country by Joseph Wild, the stream was then familiar to the early settlers and called the Morumbidgee. Even in 1821, when Hume found the Yass Plains, almost on its bank, he makes no special mention of the river. From all this we may deduce the extremely probable fact that the position of the river was shown to some

nducted different excursions. By the time he reached manhood, Hume was justly classed amongst the finest bushmen in the colony. In his after career when he led the famous expedition to the south coast, and again, when as S

(1824); Sturt (1829 and

RY OF THE HU

eral having been unable to determine the question as to whether any large river entered the sea between Cape Otway and Spencer's Gulf, a somewhat hazardous idea entered the head of the then Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, to land a party of convicts near Wilson's Promontory, and induce them by the offer of a

y cattle and horses. This offer aroused the Government to some sense of its responsibility, and it agreed to do something in the matter. This "something" amounted to six pack-saddles and gear, one tent of Parramatta cloth, two tarpaulins, a suit of slop clothes a-piece for the men, and an order to Hume to select 1,200 acres of land for himself. In addition, the Government generously granted the explorers two skeleton charts upon which to trace the rout

of the party was eight all told. Their outfit of animals consisted

sting trade with occasional trips to New Zealand, he had relinquished his career as a sailor and had settled at Narellan

of one of their carts, with the wheels detached, and with the aid of the tarpaulin, rigged like a punt. South of the Murrumbidgee the country was broken and difficult to traverse, but it was well grassed and

of November they beheld a sight rarely witnessed before by white men in Australia. Ascending a range in order to obtain a view of the country ahead of them, they suddenly found themselves confronted with snow-capped mountains. There, under the brillia

ht days across its many spurs, came upon a fine, flowing river, which Hume named after his father, the Hume

e.] See C

y. Still passing through good pastoral land, watered by numerous creeks, they crossed a river which was named the Ovens, and on the 3rd of December they came to another, name

western interior, beyond a certain limit, as unfitted for human habitation, and had expressed his opinion that the monotonous flats across which he vainly looked

different climes. The history of Australian exploration was then a statement of hasty conclusions, formed perhaps under certain climatic circumstances to be falsified on a subsequent visit when the conditions were radically different. In Hume's case, there was no ill-founded conclusion of the a

n later days elaborated into unseemly paper conflict. It is painful if somewhat amusing to read of the acrid disputes as to the course, under the very shadow of the majestic Australian Alps whose solitude had only then been first disturbed by white men; and how, on agreeing to separate and divide the outfit, it was proposed to cut the only tent in two, and how the one frying-pan was broken by both men pulling at

retirement to join Sturt in his first battle with the wilderness. His temporary association with that explorer will

Charles Sturt.