John Davis

“ Had the unusually dry season, then, during which, as we know, Sturt went upon his central expedition, dried up every thing—creek and lake, high plain and "claypan hollow," and left the crisp and brittle grass to be swept away by the hot wind? Mr. McKinlay dilates upon creeks winding their devious course alternately through flooded flats and grassy hollows; one in particular running "principally through what was recently a large lake, now a splendidly grassed plain of vast extent." ”

“ The desire to appropriate is as inveterate in the black as, according to our police, it is in the white, and this impulse is perhaps the most fertile of all occasions of differences. A large property, of a nature kindred to blankets and tomahawks, fishhooks and bead necklaces, and a small party to defend it, forms a sad stumbling-block in the way of aboriginal virtues. The kindness shown by the Cooper's Creek natives to King, the survivor of Burke's party, as well as their sympathizing lament over the body of Burke, are pleasing and encouraging traits. ”

“ Our breakfast was the ditto of last night's supper—a scon and a pot of tea; the cart not coming up, and containing as usual all our commissariat in use. Had a fine bathe in the creek this morning, which quite refreshed all of us.
We shall stay here to-day and rest the bullocks, as they will not be in early, and also that they may get something to eat; the plant in the creek they also are very fond of, and as there is abundance, they will have a good feed to-day, and they want it, for the poor brutes have hardly had anything for two or three days to speak of. ”

“ The result in this latter case is a rapid and wonderful change, alike in the country's aspect and in the character of its climate. Wherever there is a soil, the moist ground, fostered by the warm and now genial air, is promptly covered with vegetation; even the slopes of the sand hills sprout out with flowers; life teems forth in air, earth, and water. ”

“ Having once, by these free institutions, transferred the reins to the vigorous colonial grasp, we fear that the mere abstract Imperial supremacy, which, with all its strength of legal theory, still unites the Empire under one Government, would prove of small avail in regulating an exciting domestic question of colonial legislation. In the North Australia of the future no question, probably, will be more exciting than that of the regulations of the labour supply. Imperial views in such a question would take an equitable and humane direction for the necessary protection of the labourer ”

“ To recover from disasters, indeed, is as much the forte of a true bullock-driver as to avoid them. The dray ever emerges triumphant from everything. Ned, like a geologist, only requires time; but time, in a flying march across Australia, is a costly requirement. The cart has been daily weighed in a balance of accumulating deficiences, till at length the climax of its fate comes with the heavy rains encountered in the desert country. ”

“ Quite knocked up, and too tired to put the tents up, slept with mother earth for our bed, and the canopy of heaven for our tent. We kept watch, however, but each man was right glad when his two hours' guard was over.
Lake Cudgeecudgeena is very pretty from our camp, the water beautifully clear, with belts of timber all round; the pelican, ducks, geese, and other water-fowls, are here in thousands on its bosom. Rising above the timber, opposite our tents, are seen sand hills covered with salt-bushes. On the south-west rises Anlaby Hill; it is a pretty spot. ”

“ We arrived with the horses and camels about 3·30 p.m. Not a tree hardly to be seen at Lake Moolionboorrana, so we had to camp without the slightest shade; reflection from the water and sand very trying, the latter burning the feet as we walked. The cart and sheep not up to time. Wylde and Bell went in search of the missing party with a pack-horse to bring some food, if the dray could not come on; it became so dark, however, they could not follow the tracks, and returned unsuccessful at 10 p.m. Innumerable pelicans, ducks, gulls, waders, cormorants, and pigeons, plenty of fish also. ”

“ The arrow points to the spot where McKinlay buried some letters in an air-tight tin case, for any parties who might come there; also some memoranda for the Commissioner of Crown Lands. We are all very happy that we are to be on the road again, although we were very comfortable here under all circumstances. Still we got tired of the awful monotony of the same humdrum life; same niggers, same trees, same pelicans. Everything ready for a start the first thing to-morrow morning. ”

“ Leichhardt alludes to the vast waterless plains which a timely rain enabled him to get over. The bold explorer must push on, taking the providence of the hour. We may thus in imagination make a good shower into a safe ferry-boat, or a plank thrown across an impassable gorge, without whose aid the traveller must only remain where he is. ”

“ To-day is a memorable day, the last we shall have any bread. The flour is all gone except two bags, which are to be kept for the sick, and to have a jolly big feed when we reach the salt water. It will seem odd to have nothing but meat and water to live on for the next three months perhaps. I suppose we shall get used to it, and not miss the staff of life in a few days. We are drawing so far to the east to avoid a creek that I should not be surprised if, after all, we went for stores before proceeding to the Gulf. ”

“ After getting all things to dry land we reloaded the camels with their proper burdens, giving the horses what belonged to them, and what we brought up on the second trip, and started for camp (we are all shivering and shaking, and teeth fairly chattering with the intense cold) on a sand-hill, where there is plenty of water and fine feed for the animals; but the road to it is our difficulty, the beasts all slipping and sliding about, and we expecting some of them to be down every minute. The poor little sheep were sometimes up to their bellies in mud, and had to be lifted out. ”

“ Landsborough's successful journey, more, perhaps, than that of any other before him, will stimulate pastoral colonization, already advancing with a wonderful progress from the southern settlements towards the north and west, into that vast and vacant expanse of a pastoral empire through which the explorer passed. The herbage and the climate are found suited to the sheep even in these low latitudes; nor is the Australian squatter much disturbed by the assertions of scientific theory that the close fine warm fleece cannot continue upon the sheep under a tropical sun. ”

“ I hope we shall soon see some merry faces and laughing eyes at Port Denison. Pretty creatures, what should we do without them!
Our path is through a good deal of scrub today, and we came only about twelve miles, on account of the sick men, and camped on a lagoon, in which all those who were well had a bathe, as usual, whenever there was water enough. It was very cold; a most tremendous dew last night and this morning; everything was wet through, and McKinlay's waterproof over his bedding had a gallon of water resting on it in the hollows. I never experienced such a heavy dew in my life. ”

“ Native name of this creek is "Watti-widulo." As soon as we arrived here we were beset by natives—young men and maidens, old men and children, and some of the most hideous old crones among them ever seen; they were nearly all to be decorated with beads, and Mr. McKinlay sat down and hung round their jet necks necklaces, and round the arms of the young girls he placed bracelets of multifarious colours. The tribe here is legion. Most of the elderly people have their four front teeth knocked out in the upper jaw; in the younger portion of the community you do not see it so often. ”

“ Hodgkinson to ascertain its depth, and found it too deep, so had to go round. Arrived at Luncheon Place at 12·10, and started again 3·40, and travelled to east end of lake, bearing 202°, till 4·17; then course of 27°, over exceedingly high and abrupt sand hills, with poor miserable flats between them; towards the end of our day's journey, over a rather more flat country, with large dry beds of lakes or swamps, as dry as ashes, with a salt-like appearance, the only vegetation being a few scattered bushes of samphire, and an occasional salt-bush—a more dreary country you could not well imagine. ”

“ These exploits of Stuart exceed, alike for their extent of travel and adventure as for the importance of their results, those of all preceding Australian explorers. Of the very considerable legion that now claims to have aided the cause of Australian discovery, Stuart is indisputably the prominent figure. He has disencumbered the vast interior of Australia of its repelling awe and mystery; and he has shown that it is not only readily accessible to the colonists, but to a large extent available for immediate colonization. ”

“ Camped on a small box creek with plenty of water; there was no timber anywhere except on the banks of the creeks and the tops of the ranges.
We are getting on well now, and hope to continue making good days' work, every one being in excellent health. A sheep to be killed to-day to keep us up a bit, as the jerked meat does not satisfy us. We shall have to eat horses yet, I expect, and then—but don't let me think of it at present, quite time enough when the sheep and bullocks are all eaten. ”

“ Took Middleton with me to ascertain what kind of country there is between camp and coast. On bearing of 355°, at six miles, came to and crossed a creek, plenty of water, flowing to north-north-east; at sixteen and a half miles struck a creek with heavy box and gum timber, and water where we struck it in small lagoons and side creeks. Camped; natives burning ahead of us, and a little east. A great portion of the country we have come over from camp is inundated, and has now coarse grass and reeds. This creek flows here about north; south of this, it comes more to the north-north-east. ”

“ Plenty of water on our road to-day, keeping the Leichhardt on our right all the way, the fine timber on its banks marking well its course.
18th. (Camp lix.) Everything at camp all right. We were all off together this morning. We shall soon strike the Gulf; at any rate we cannot be far off from the sea, as the tide rises some four or five feet here, and perhaps more. We had rather nasty travelling over plains, not a hill to be seen; look where you will, the grass nearly all burnt off the ground; in places the stumps were rather trying to the camels, they being as sharp as spikes. ”

“ The only motive for digging a well was that a change of water was desirable, as McKinlay fancied it was the water in the creek that had something to do with the sickness; but we must still stick to the creek, and make the best of it. I rather think a change of diet would do some good; constantly eating the same thing day after day is bad, I know. No vegetables. The greater part of our food is flesh, with a small modicum of bread. No wonder we get indisposed. ”

“ The expedition breaks up at length from Lake Buchanan, after a two months' camping, and takes a course about north-north-east, to a fine sheet of water about sixteen miles in circumference, named after the second in command, Lake Hodgkinson, We are now in the very heart of the summer, and our travellers experience all the defects of this remarkable country. The heat is frequently intense, almost beyond the endurance of either man or beast, and aggravated by the total want of shelter of any kind, which was most commonly their lot in camping or marching over such an open country. ”

“ We read to-day poor Wills' journal—or rather, that part of it up to Cooper's Creek; also Wright's journal, the officer Mr. Burke left in charge at a place called "Bulla." They were interesting to us, we being one of the relief-parties sent out in search of Burke. Let us hope we may succeed better. At all events, we have every confidence in our leader; for it is a well-admitted fact that the colonies cannot produce a better, if as good, a bushman as McKinlay, and having been here so long, he is up to all the dodges of the natives, and knows their general character well. ”

“ In powers of endurance the camel seemed quite the equal of his rival, but he was more unruly and troublesome, and very uncompanionable with the other animals, his fellow travellers. McKinlay found a decided convenience in the height of his back, as compared with that of the horse, in keeping the supplies of the party out of the water on the occasion of traversing the flooded parts of the march.
But both horse and camel alike proved useful in other ways less premeditated. Necessity cures many prejudices, and hunger is a sauce to reconcile us to a very miscellaneous diet. ”

“ This sub-tropical area, with all its precarious climate, is yet not to be accounted the mere desert that Sturt has impressed upon our minds; but neither is it to be depended on as the blooming, well-watered surface of later explorers. It may be urged, indeed, to its disadvantage that, as the country is liable to such extremes of condition, the bloom of one favourable season will hardly compensate to life and property for the uninhabitable waste that may be caused by its unfavourable successor. We are reminded of the saying that the strength of a whole cable is just that of its weakest link ”

“ We augur well of this Imperial arrangement, not merely because it forms a fitting acknowledgment of colonial enterprise, but because we may venture to see in it the beginning of a new policy, by which the Home Government frees itself, once for all, from the imaginary, or, at any rate, to it, the needless costs and difficulties of founding new colonies. Colonies already established and prosperous may be left to perform this duty, and they may be so left all the more readily when, as in this case, they are prompt to take the duty in hand, with all its outlay and trouble. ”

“ McKinlay is going to look for some more lakes, said to be east and south of our present camp.
More necklaces for the natives, who were highly delighted with their presents; they are all a fine, sleek, fat-looking race: they must live principally on fish, in fact there seems little else for them to eat, unless they can catch the gulls and ducks sailing about the broad and beautiful lake, or bring down some of the pigeons and cockatoos of all kinds that abound here. Occasionally a black may be seen with a solitary bird, but not often. ”

“ Had he been followed the day before by Hodgkinson with the same perseverance, all would have been well, and much anxiety spared to all. If the poor man has kept to the ranges, I'm afraid there is little hope of him — it will be a sad end for the poor fellow; a better man for his occupation could not be found. Just fancy an unfortunate man lost between two and three hundred miles from the coast, in a perfect wild, with twenty-three sheep (and I question if he has any matches) , left to sink or swim beyond reach of any Christian soul. ”

“ Still, though in lieu of this, we are now beneath a sultry sun, and seek relief in densest shade, though the myriad, busy ant swarms on the ill-protected plate, and the rapacious fly devours our luscious plums, yet the cherished recollections of the season hedge round us, repelling all incongruity, and demanding all effort for enjoyment. ”

“ Off in the morning on the road for Maranaric, and camped without tents. The cart, as usual, not up to-night. One of the fellows with a native black went after the camels, just to see where they were, as it was rather scrubby, when the wicked one (Siva) rushed at the two men and made them go for their lives, scrambling over logs and stumps and stones, much to the enjoyment of those in camp, who were watching their eccentric movements. Here it was necessary to walk about four miles to the station for supper—pleasant that after the day's work. ”