Central Australia

“ That the river is the most important of Australia, increasing as it does by successive tributaries, and not a mere product of distant ranges, admits of no dispute; and the downs and plains of Central Australia, through which it flows, seem sufficient to supply the whole world with animal food. The natives are few and inoffensive. I happened to surprise one tribe at a lagoon, who did not seem to be averse that such strangers were in that country ”

“ How poor Central Queensland looks to a person coming from the charming tropics of Northern Queensland! But here in the south the genuine Australian landscape is found, the characteristic feature of which is the fantastical and the gloomy; solemn gum-trees, which lose their white bark in winter just as European trees shed their leaves, stiff grass-trees, solemn-looking acacias, can hardly give any charm to a landscape. ”

“ One little area of country, of no great importance but still untrodden by man yet remained in Central Australia, as a lure to excite the white man's curiosity. This unvisited spot was situated north of latitude 26, and bounded on the west by the Finke River, on the north by the Plenty and Marshall Rivers and part of the MacDonnell Ranges, and on the west by the Hay River and the Queensland border. An expedition to exploit it was equipped by Ronald MacPherson, and assisted by the South Australian Government with the loan of camels. ”

“ In the boundary between Victoria and New South Wales it is called the Australian Alps, and west of Sydney the Blue Mountains.
Round the lower part of the Gulf of Carpentaria and in a part of the south coast of Australia the “plate” has no edge, and low and flat country stretches here from the sea far into the interior. On the other hand an elevation is found in the “bottom of the plate” in Central Australia, but this elevation nowhere reaches 3000 feet.
Australia has no streams to be compared with the great rivers of other countries, a fact due to the scarcity of rain. ”

“ Adelaide is surrounded by an amphitheatre of wooded hills rearing their heads not far away from the city, and forms a very fine picture when thus approached. The capital is so perfectly level that to be seen to advantage it must be looked upon as a whole from some favorable elevation. Though this colony is called South Australia, it should be known as Central Australia in respect to its actual geographical position. ”

“ He then supposes Australia to be invaded by a more advanced fairer, straight-haired race which, arriving at a very early period of the world's history, perhaps on the north-west coast, poured into Central Australia with a generally south-easterly current. ”

“ If, in truth, keeping the distant interior entirely out of view, and confining our observations to those portions of the colony into which the settlers have pushed in search for runs, we look to the great extent of unavailable country between the Murray and the Mount Gambier district, along the line of the Murray belt, and the extensive tracts at the head of the Gulfs, we shall find that South Australia, from the very nature of its formation, has an undue proportion of waste land. ”

“ Providence had rewarded a people who had borne their reverses with singular firmness and magnanimity. Their harvest fields were bowed down by the weight of grain; their pastoral pursuits were prosperous; the hills were yielding forth their mineral wealth, and peace and prosperity prevailed over the land. May the inhabitants of South Australia continue to deserve and to receive the protection of that Almighty power, on whose will the existence of nations as well as that of individuals depends! ”

“ Victoria lay more to the south than our province, and now that we stretched far inside the tropics the name seemed ridiculous. My friend Miss Sinnett suggested Centralia as the appropriate name for the State, which by this gift was really the central State; but in the present crisis, when South Australia finds the task of keeping the Northern Territory white too arduous and too costly, and is offering it on handsome terms to the Commonwealth, Centralia might not continue to be appropriate. Our northern possession has cost South Australia much. ”

“ As before observed, the aspect of South Australia, and indeed of many parts of the neighbouring colonies, is essentially English. There, as in England, you see the white-washed cottage, and its little garden stocked with fruit trees of every kind, its outward show of cleanliness telling that peace and comfort are within. To sever oneself from our kindred, and to abandon the dwelling of our fathers, is a sacrifice of no imaginary magnitude, whether we are rich or poor, and the prospects of reward should be bright indeed to compensate for it. ”

“ The Northern Territory is the tropical area of some half a million square miles ceded by the state of South Australia to the central government. The Federal Territory corresponds nearly to our District of Columbia; for it is the nine hundred and forty square miles set aside for Canberra, the new capital of the Commonwealth. During the erection of the necessary buildings at Canberra, the capital remains at Melbourne. The territory of Papua, or British New Guinea, is the southeastern part of the island of New Guinea and is administered by officials nominated by the Governor-General of Australia. ”

“ Let any man lay the map of Australia before him, and regard the blank upon its surface, and then let me ask him if it would not be an honourable achievement to be the first to place foot in its centre. ”

“ WESTERN AUSTRALIA, a British colonial state, forming part of the Commonwealth of Australia. (For Map, see Australia.) This portion of Australia lies to the west of 129° E. long., forming considerably more than one-third of the whole; it has an area of 1,060,000 sq. m., is 1400 m. in length and 830 in breadth, and has a coast-line of 3500 m. It is divided into five districts—Central, Central Eastern, South-Eastern, North and Kimberley. The Central or settled district, in the south-west, is divided into twenty-six counties. ”

“ Notice that we can have here no great industrial and commercial centre, but merely a town like Bathurst, a centre of farming and country life. Perhaps in this it will be more representative of the real Australia than are the larger cities. In position Yass is nearer Sydney than Melbourne; but it is roughly halfway between Brisbane and Adelaide; so that it is fairly central for the long belt which contains most of the population of Eastern Australia. The city is not to be allowed 44 to grow haphazard ”

“ Meantime, fortunately, the living pastoral treasures of Australia came pouring in, and increased and multiplied on the fine downs and grass-covered hills, while some wise, hard-working settlers devoted themselves to agriculture.
During this period the Port Phillip district was nominally under the government of the central authority at Sydney, but in reality the people governed themselves, with the help of a magistrate and a few policemen, while a neighbouring colony of the same date was enjoying all the costly magnificence of elaborate government machinery. ”

“ Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The new country took advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. In recent decades, Australia has transformed itself into an internationally competitive, advanced market economy. ”

“ My knowledge of the interior is, however, too limited to justify me in any conclusion with regard to the central parts of Australia. An ample field is open to enterprise and to ambition, and it is to be hoped that some more decisive measures will be carried into effect, both for the sake of the colony and of geography, to fill up the blank upon the face of the chart of Australia, and remove from us the reproach of indifference and inaction. ”

“ Indeed, more than half of the recently explored regions are suitable for sheep and cattle, but there are other great districts which are miserable and forbidding. However, thanks to the heroic men whose names have been mentioned, and to such others as the Jardine Brothers, Ernest Favenc, Gosse, and the Baron von Mueller, almost the whole of Australia is now explored. Only a small part of South Australia and the central part of West Australia remain unknown. We all of us owe a great debt of gratitude to the men who endured so much to make known to the world the capabilities of our continent. ”

“ The South Australian Government and liberal and enthusiastic private persons were now bent on sending parties out to push overland from Central South Australia to the west coast. The overland telegraph line supplied a base, and numerous and determined efforts were made to get over the sullen wastes which stretched from there. Giles, Warburton, and Gosse were entrusted with the command of these expeditions. ”

“ This tract, he believed, was probably the bed of an ocean which at one period separated Western Australia from the rest of the continent. The land seen by the party was of little interest to the pastoralist, but the knowledge obtained was of the highest possible value from a scientific point of view. Thus the sullen central deserts had been penetrated in four different places and the old problems of inland seas and the nature of the interior were solved. The men who first accomplished this task must rank among the illustrious in history. ”

“ It is occupied by five British colonies, namely, New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland in the east; South Australia in the middle, stretching from sea to sea; and Western Australia in the west, which, with the Island of Tasmania, form the Commonwealth of Australia. Their area and population are as follows:—
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth are the chief towns. ”

“ The five self-governing Provinces of the mainland of Australia have been evolved from the Crown Colonies of New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia by the successive detachment of Victoria and Queensland from the former and the gradual growth of the system of responsible government, and are separated by lines of demarcation which, except where the Murray or one of its tributaries forms the boundary, are purely arbitrary and have not been drawn in accordance with any distinctive geographical features. ”

“ South Australia is a misnomer; the parent colony is in the southern part of the continent, but its jurisdiction extends from ocean to ocean to the northern shore, and includes the so-called Northern Territory, or Alexandra Land, which will one day, no doubt, form an independent government. To the eastward of the Northern Territory and South Australia is Queensland, and south of Queensland and eastward of South Australia is the parent colony of New South Wales. Then comes the colony of Victoria, south of New South Wales ”

“ Western Australia, as its name implies, is the tract of country lying upon the western side of the great island continent of the south. A glance at the map shows that the eastern side of the island, and much of the southern, is occupied by the colonies of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, the land in which is taken up by squatters, by agriculturists and miners for hundreds of miles inland, while the coast-line is studded with large cities, like Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, and with numerous flourishing settlements. ”

“ To-day, to-morrow, and henceforward Western Australia is not the forgotten, the despised, and the rejected amidst the colonies of Australasia, but the one most likely to take the leading place in material wealth and prosperity. No longer the land of sand and sorrow, Western Australia has become an auriferous empire, which the British peoples may well be proud to possess for a heritage. ”

“ Western Australia, with her dreary expanse of sandy desert and silent bush, is the camping-place of hundreds of tired wayfarers who fell, not amid the roar of cannon and the excitement of the battle-field, but in the grim fight with starvation and thirst. As death thins the ranks the gaps are filled by others, and thus the hidden treasures of the land are revealed to the world. ”

“ Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia were represented at the Council, and such laws as it can pass will thus affect three-fifths of the area of the continent. The absence of South Australia is understood to be accidental. ”

“ It seemed certain however that we stood in the richest province of South-west Australia, and one which so differs from the other portions of it in its geological characters, in the elevations of its mountains which lie close to the sea coast, in the fertility of its soil, and the density of its native population, that we appeared to be moving upon another continent. As yet however the only means I had of judging of the large number of natives inhabiting this district had been from their paths and warran grounds, but it was most probable that we should ere long fall in with some of them. ”

“ Colonies seem peculiar instruments for discovering and trying man's heart and fibre. The survival of the fittest is here an axiom, whose truth is ever tested and confirmed. Pluck, heart, courage—summed up in the narrow word "fortitude" are virtues which Western Australia has ably put to the test. We have had many dauntless adventurers since the first days of Anstey, and each one's history constitutes a narrative at once teeming with romance and shimmering in the gilded edges of success. ”

“ The effect that the repellant nature of the Australian coast has had upon the southern progress of semi-civilisation is remarkably distinct. Each successive wave of improvement from the Asiatic continent seems to grow weaker and weaker as it travels south, until it breaks hopelessly on Australia. ”