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CAPTAIN COOK and his Predecessors in Australasian Waters, by REGINALD FORD, F.R.G.S., Member of the British National Antarctic Expedition. GOVERNOR PHILLIP and his Immediate successors, BY F.M. BLADEN, Chief Librarian, Public Library, Sydney. EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD, by THE EDITOR. SIR GEORGE GREY, by JAMES COLLIER, sometime Librarian, General Assembly Library, Wellington. Captain Charles Sturt, aged about 54 years. From the painting by Crossland....
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In presenting to the public this history of those makers of Australasia whose work consisted in the exploration of the surface of the continent of Australia, I have much pleasure in drawing the reader's attention to the portraits which illustrate the text. It is, I venture to say, the most complete collection of portraits of the explorers that has yet been published in one volume. Some of them of course must needs be conventional; but many of them, such as the portrait of Oxley when a young man,
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BIBLIOGRAPHY.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The published Journals of all the Explorers of Australia. Reports of Explorations published in Parliamentary Papers. History of New South Wales, from the Records. (Barton and Bladen.) Account of New South Wales, by Captain Watkin Tench. Manuscript Diaries of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth. Manuscript Diaries of G.W. Evans. (Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers.) The Pioneers of Victoria and South Australia, by various writers. Contemporaneous Australian Journals of the several States. Private letters an
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INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
In introducing this book, I should like to commend it to its readers as giving an account of the explorers of Australia in a simple and concise form not hitherto available. It introduces them to us, tells the tale of their long-tried patience and stubborn endurance, how they lived and did their work, and gives a short but graphic outline of the work they accomplished in opening out and preparing Australia as another home for our race on this side of the world. The battle that they fought and won
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MAPS AND PLANS.
MAPS AND PLANS.
1. Routes of Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson (1813); Evans (1813); Oxley (1817, 1818, 1823); and Sturt (1828 and 1829). 2. Routes of Hume and Hovell (1824); Sturt (1829 and 1830); and Mitchell (1836). 3. Routes of Sturt (1829 and 1830); and Hume and Hovell (1824). 4. Routes of Leichhardt (1844 and 1845); Mitchell (1845 and 1846); and Kennedy (1847 and 1848). 5. Routes of Eyre (1840 and 1841). 6. Basin of Lake Torrens, supposed extent and formation of. 7. Route of Sturt's Central Australian Exped
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CHAPTER 1. ORIGINS.
CHAPTER 1. ORIGINS.
Arthur Phillip, whose claim to be considered the first inland explorer of the south-eastern portion of Australia rests upon his discovery of the Hawkesbury River and a few short excursions to the northward of Port Jackson, had but scant leisure to spare from his official duties for extended geographical research. For all that, Phillip and a few of his officers were sufficiently imbued with the spirit of discovery to find opportunity to investigate a considerable area of country in the immediate
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CHAPTER 2. GEORGE WILLIAM EVANS.
CHAPTER 2. GEORGE WILLIAM EVANS.
George W. Evans, Discoverer of the Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers. George William Evans, Deputy-Surveyor of Lands, came forward at this stage as the most prominent figure in Australian exploration. To him is due the honour, without dispute or cavil, of being the first discoverer of an Australian river flowing into the interior. For some reason he has never received adequate recognition of his important explorations, and he is well-nigh forgotten by the people of New South Wales, the state that has
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CHAPTER 3. JOHN OXLEY.
CHAPTER 3. JOHN OXLEY.
John Oxley. From a portrait in the possession of Mrs. Oxley, of Bowral. The portrait was presented to Mrs. King, widow of Governor King, in 1810, and signed by him. Oxley was born in England in the early part of 1781. In his youth he entered the navy, saw active service in many parts of the world, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant. He came to Australia in January, 1812, and was appointed Surveyor-General. Throughout his career in Australia, Oxley would seem to have won the friendship and respec
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CHAPTER 4. HAMILTON HUME.
CHAPTER 4. HAMILTON HUME.
Hamilton Hume, in his later life. Hamilton Hume was the son of the Reverend Andrew Hume, who came to the colony with his wife in the transport Lady Juliana, and held an appointment in the Commissariat Department. Hamilton was born in Parramatta in the year 1797, on the 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 coun
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CHAPTER 5. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
CHAPTER 5. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
Allan Cunningham. Allan Cunningham, the great botanical explorer of Australia, was born at Wimbledon, near London, in 1791. He received a good education, his father intending him for the law; but he preferred gardening, and obtained a position under Mr. Aiton, at Kew. In 1814 he went to Brazil, where he made large collections of dried specimens, living plants, and seeds. Here he remained two years, collecting in the vicinity of Rio, the Organ Mountains, San Paolo, and other parts of Brazil. Sir
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CHAPTER 6. CHARLES STURT.
CHAPTER 6. CHARLES STURT.
Charles Sturt was born in India at Chunar-Ghur, on April the 28th, 1795. His father, Thomas Lennox Napier Sturt, was a puisne Judge in Bengal under the East India Company; his mother was Jeanette Wilson. The Sturts were an old Dorsetshire family. In 1799, Charles, as was common with most Anglo-Indian children, was sent home to England, to the care of his aunts, Mrs. Wood and Miss Wilson, at Newton Hall, Middlewich. He went first to a private school at Astbury, and in 1810 was sent to Harrow. On
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CHAPTER 7. SIR THOMAS MITCHELL.
CHAPTER 7. SIR THOMAS MITCHELL.
Sir Thomas Mitchell. Mitchell, whose name both as explorer and Surveyor-General looms large in our history, was born at Craigend, Stirlingshire, in 1792. He was the son of John Mitchell of Grangemouth, and his mother was a daughter of Alexander Milne of Carron Works. When he was but sixteen, young Mitchell joined the army of the Peninsula as a volunteer. Three years later he received a commission in the 95th Regiment or Rifle Brigade. He was employed on the Quartermaster General's staff at milit
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CHAPTER 8. THE EARLY FORTIES.
CHAPTER 8. THE EARLY FORTIES.
Angas McMillan, who was the discoverer of what is now so widely-known as Gippsland, in Victoria, was a manager of the Currawang station, in the Maneroo district. On the 20th of May, 1839, he started from the station on a trip to the southward to look for new grazing land. He had with him but one black boy, named Jimmy Gibbu, who claimed to be the chief of the Maneroo tribe, so that if the party was small, it was very select. On the fifth day McMillan got through to the country watered by the Buc
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CHAPTER 9. EDMUND B. KENNEDY.
CHAPTER 9. EDMUND B. KENNEDY.
Edmund B. Kennedy. E.B. Kennedy, whose tragic death ineffaceably branded the Cape York blacks as remorselessly cruel, came to Australia early in life, and was appointed a Government surveyor in 1840. His first experience as an explorer was gained when as Assistant-Surveyor and second in command he accompanied his chief on the last expedition that Mitchell led into the interior. On this occasion he remained in charge of the camp formed at St. George's Bridge, and then conducted part of the expedi
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CHAPTER 10. LATER EXPLORATION IN THE NORTH-EAST.
CHAPTER 10. LATER EXPLORATION IN THE NORTH-EAST.
Frederick Walker commenced his bush career as a pioneer squatter in the districts of Southern Queensland, but afterwards made his residence near the centre, where he joined the Native Police. He had long bush experience, was a firm believer in the training of the natives in quasi-military duty, and had taken a prominent part in the formation of the Queensland Native Police. On this relief expedition, the party was composed almost entirely of Native Police troopers under his leadership. On receiv
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CHAPTER 11. EDWARD JOHN EYRE.
CHAPTER 11. EDWARD JOHN EYRE.
The exploration of the centre of the continent was long retarded by the difficult nature of the country -- by its aridity, its few continuously-watered rivers, and the supposed horse-shoe shape of Lake Torrens, which thrust its vast shallow morass across the path of the daring explorers making north. For most of us of the present day, to whom Lake Torrens is but a geographical feature, it is hard to imagine the sense of awe it inspired in the breasts of the South Australian settlers, who appeare
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CHAPTER 12. ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE CENTRE.
CHAPTER 12. ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE CENTRE.
Basin of Lake Torrens, supposed extent and formation of. It will be remembered that Eyre, in 1840, reached, after much labour, an elevation to the north-east, at the termination of the range which he had followed, and had named it Mount Hopeless. From the outlook from its summit he came to the conclusion that the lake was of the shape shown in the diagram, completely surrounding the northern portion of the new colony of South Australia. In fact, he formed a theory that the colony in far distant
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CHAPTER 13. BABBAGE AND STUART.
CHAPTER 13. BABBAGE AND STUART.
B. Herschel Babbage. Born 1815; died 1878. The unsolved problem of the extent and other details of that vast region of salt lakes and flat country then known under the generic name of Lake Torrens still greatly occupied the attention and excited the imaginations of the colonists of South Australia. And the accounts brought back by the different exploring parties were conflicting in the extreme. In 1851, two squatters, named Oakden and Hulkes, out run-hunting, pushed westward of Lake Torrens, and
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CHAPTER 14. BURKE AND WILLS.
CHAPTER 14. BURKE AND WILLS.
Robert O'Hara Burke. From a photograph in the possession of E.J. Welch, of the Howitt Relief Expedition. William John Wills. From a photograph in the possession of E.J. Welch, of the Howitt Relief Expedition. We have now to deal with an exploring expedition of greater notoriety than that of any similar enterprise in the annals of Australia, though its results in the way of actual exploration in the true meaning of the term were quite insignificant. The expedition could not reasonably hope to rev
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CHAPTER 15. THE RELIEF EXPEDITIONS AND ATTEMPTS TOWARDS PERTH.
CHAPTER 15. THE RELIEF EXPEDITIONS AND ATTEMPTS TOWARDS PERTH.
John McKinlay was born at Sandbank, on the Clyde, in 1819. He first came to the colony of New South Wales in 1836, and joined his uncle, a prosperous grazier, under whose guidance he soon became a good bushman with an ardent love of bush life. He took up several runs near the South Australian border, and thenceforth became associated with that province. In 1861 he was appointed leader of the South Australian relief party and started from Adelaide on October 26th. On arriving at Blanche Water, he
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CHAPTER 16. TRAVERSING THE CENTRE.
CHAPTER 16. TRAVERSING THE CENTRE.
Ernest Giles was born at Bristol, a famous birthplace of adventurous spirits. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and after leaving school came out to South Australia to join his parents, who had preceded him thither. In 1852 he went to the Victorian goldfields, and subsequently became a clerk, first in the Post Office, Melbourne, and afterwards in the county court. Ernest Giles. Having resigned his clerkship, he pursued a bush life, and in 1872 made his first effort in the field of ex
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CHAPTER 17. ROE, GREY, AND GREGORY.
CHAPTER 17. ROE, GREY, AND GREGORY.
Whilst Sturt and kindred bold spirits had been painfully but surely piecing together the geographical puzzle of the south-east corner of the Australian continent, a similar struggle between man and Nature had commenced in the south-west. Here, Nature kept close her secrets with no less pertinacity than in the east; but, though the struggle was just as arduous, the environment was very different. Instead of rearing an unscalable barrier of gloomy mountains, Nature here showed a level front of sul
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CHAPTER 18. A.C. AND F.T. GREGORY.
CHAPTER 18. A.C. AND F.T. GREGORY.
The Imperial Government having long considered the feasibility of further exploration of the interior of Australia voted 5000 pounds for the purpose, and offered the command of the expedition to A.C. Gregory. As the inexplicable disappearance of Leichhardt was then exciting much interest in Australia, search for the lost expedition was to form one of its chief duties. On the 12th of August, 1855, Gregory's party left Moreton Bay in the barque Monarch, attended by the schooner Tom Tough. There we
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CHAPTER 19. FROM WEST TO EAST.
CHAPTER 19. FROM WEST TO EAST.
By 1854 the gold fever was running high in Australia, and each colony was eager to discover new diggings within its borders. Robert Austin, Assistant Surveyor-General of Western Australia, was instructed to take charge of an inland exploring party to search for pastoral country, and to examine the interior for indications of gold. He started from the head of the Swan River on a north-easterly course, and on the 16th of July reached a lake, rumours of whose existence had been spread by the blacks
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CHAPTER 20. LATER EXPLORATION IN THE WEST.
CHAPTER 20. LATER EXPLORATION IN THE WEST.
The futile rush for gold to the Kimberley district had one good result -- a better appreciation of its pastoral capabilities, and numerous short expeditions were made in search of grazing country. W. Carr-Boyd and Camel. Photographed at Laverton, Western Australia, October, 1906. Amongst these was one by W.J. O'Donnell and W. Carr-Boyd, who explored an area extending from the overland line in the direction of Roebourne, and were fortunate in finding good country. Later, in 1896, Carr-Boyd, accom
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