The Australian Explorers Part 7

CHAPTER XVII.

MR. ERNEST GILE'S EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Mr. Ernest Giles is a native of Bristol, in England. As soon as his education was finished he rejoined his father and family, who had preceded him to Australia. He very early developed a pa.s.sion for exploration, and gained valuable experience in connection with various expeditions which he served in a subordinate capacity. His own fame as an explorer rests securely on the following enterprises:--

I.

Shortly after the construction of the Port Darwin telegraph, Mr. Giles made a persevering attempt to lead a small party from Chambers's Pillar to the sources of the Murchison River. The expenses were provided partly by himself and partly by Baron Von Mueller, of Melbourne. The party consisted of Messrs. Giles, Carmichael, and A. Robinson, with fifteen horses and one dog. The start was made about the middle of August, 1872.

For the early part of the journey the River Finke was followed, but it led them into a rugged, mountainous country, in which travelling was difficult. The scenery was often charming, as one glen after another was explored. Palm-Tree Glen, in particular, called forth unceasing admiration on account of the mult.i.tude of wild flowers which were "born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air." "I collected to-day," says Mr. Giles, "and during the other days since we have been in this glen, a number of most beautiful flowers, which grow in profusion in this otherwise desolate glen. I am literally surrounded by fair flowers of many a changing hue. Why Nature should scatter such floral gems in such a sterile region is difficult to understand; but such a variety of lovely flowers of every colour and perfume I have never met with previously. They alone would have induced me to name this the Glen of Flowers, but having found in it also so many of the stately palm-trees, I have called it the Glen of Palms." During a further advance among the outlying spurs of the M'Donnell Ranges, the Finke was left, or lost, and laborious search had often to be made for water. The mountains were high, but no creek was found with a longer course than twelve miles. The peaks often a.s.sumed strange and fantastic shapes, as the explorers have indicated by such names as Mount Peculiar, Haast's Bluff, &c. The following quotation from the journal shows how they were straitened at this time through want of water. After finding a little in the hollow of a rock, just sufficient to save life, Mr. Giles says:--"It was necessary to try to discover more water if possible, so, after breakfast, I walked away, but, after travelling up gullies and gorges, hills and valleys, I had to return quite unsuccessful, and I can only conclude that this water was permitted by a kind Providence to remain here in this lovely spot for my especial benefit.... I have, in grat.i.tude, called it Mount Udor, as being the only one in this region where a drop of that requisite element was to be obtained. And when I left the udor had departed also." This incident occurred at the twenty-first camp from Chambers's Pillar. From this point a persevering, but unsuccessful, effort was made to strike out west in the direction of a chain named Ehrenberg's Mountain. Want of water again forced the party back on Mount Udor. A more southerly route led to the important discovery of a great salt.w.a.ter lake, which was called Amadeus, after the then King of Spain, son of Victor Emanuel. Beyond this long, but comparatively narrow, sheet of water, a conspicuous mountain, named Olga, specially attracted the attention of Mr. Giles, who was anxious to reach it by rounding the lake. But this labour was prevented by an incident which, unhappily, caused the purpose of the expedition to collapse. Robinson had been seized with homesickness, and the infection reached Carmichael, who obstinately refused to proceed any further.

Giles tried the effect of moral suasion, which was the only weapon available for a volunteer. He pleaded the large supply of provisions, the importance of the enterprise, and the ignominy of turning back. But it was to no purpose. Carmichael had made up his mind and would listen to no arguments. Giles was now compelled to direct his march back to the telegraph line, "a baffled and beaten man." During this inglorious retreat the course lay by the Peterman, the Palmer, and the Finke rivers, and by this route the original camp No. 1 was reached. Here is the conclusion of the whole matter in Mr. Giles's own words:--"My expedition was over. I had failed in my object (to penetrate to the sources of the Murchison River) certainly, but not through any fault of mine, as I think any impartial reader of my journal will admit.... We travelled to the eastward along the course of the River Finke (homeward), and pa.s.sed a few miles to the south of Chambers's Pillar, which had been my starting-point. I had left it but twelve weeks and four days to the time I re-sighted it, and during that interval I had traversed and laid down about a thousand miles of country. My expedition thus early ends. Had I been fortunate enough to have fallen upon a good, or even fair, line of country, the distance I actually travelled would have taken me across the continent."

II.

A second attempt was made by the same explorer shortly after his return from the first. The funds being provided by the liberality of the Victorian colonists, a light party, consisting of Messrs. Giles, Tietkens, Gibson, and Andrews, with twenty-four horses, were despatched for the purpose of crossing the western half of Australia. They left the telegraph road at the junction of the Stevenson and Alberga creeks on the 4th of August, 1873. The latter was followed for some distance westward, after which, by a short cross-country route to the north, the Hamilton River was reached, and taken as a guide so far as was practicable. This journey led to the discovery of four remarkable mountain-chains. The first of these was named Anthony Range. From one of the summits they beheld a sea of mountains, countless in number, many of which presented the most comically fantastic shapes and forms which the imagination can conceive. Ayer's Range was next reached, and an equally commanding view obtained from one of its heights. The next was the Musgrave Range, occupying a central position in a far-reaching expanse of good country. Here the natives were encountered in a hostile att.i.tude, but were beaten off by the superior arms of four white men.

After a journey of 400 miles they reached Mt. Olga, which had been sighted on the former expedition. In this neighbourhood also, they found the tracks of Mr. Gosse, a contemporary explorer, which led to a deviation from the proposed route. In Cavanagh's Range a depot was established, as a basis for tentative explorations in a forbidding tract of country. About 110 miles from this centre they made a welcome discovery of a waterfall of 150 feet, sending forth a musical roar as it fell, and scattering around a plentiful shower of spray. This gladdening apparition in the desert received the name of the Alice Falls. The country in the immediate neighbourhood was also well gra.s.sed. This place has doubtless a future in store for it. Turning more to the north, in the direction of a broken country, another splendid range, named the Rawlinson, was discovered. It extended to 60 miles in length, with a breadth of five or six. The peaks were remarkably pointed and jagged.

From this position an attempt was made to strike out in a north-westerly direction, but bad fortune compelled them to return after Mt.

Destruction had been reached. Four of the horses had been lost in a journey of ninety miles; water was not to be found; the natives were troublesome; and the eye could discern nothing ahead but spinifex desert and rolling sand-hills. A return to the Rawlinson Range was, therefore, imperative. Having again rested for a little, another determined effort was made to force a pa.s.sage due west across the interior and strike the outposts of settlement in Western Australia. All was done that man could do, but impossibilities are not to be accomplished. The western flanks of the Rawlinson Range faded away into a barren and waterless desert.

Giles and Gibson had, as a gigantic effort of perseverance, penetrated 98 miles into this inhospitable waste. But no further could they go.

Here, on the 23rd of April, the utmost bourne of the expedition was reached. One of the two horses here knocked up and died. This was the last time Gibson was seen. Giles did his utmost to bring him help, but he was never found. His bones lie somewhere in that awful wilderness, which to this day bears his name. When the furthest point was reached better fortune seemed to loom in the distance. Another range of lofty mountains was descried athwart the western horizon, which he called the Alfred and Marie, after the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh. They might as well have been in the moon so far as Mr. Giles was concerned in his now pitiable plight. His own reflections were deplorably bitter:--"The hills bounding the western horizon were between thirty and forty miles away, and it was with extreme regret that I was compelled to relinquish a further attempt to reach them. Oh, how ardently I longed for a camel; how ardently I gazed upon the scene! At this moment I would even my jewel eternal have sold for power to span that gulf that lay between.

But it could not be; situated as I was, I was compelled to retreat, and the sooner the better." Such was his destiny. After almost twelve months' wanderings in the wilderness, three of the four explorers escaped with their lives, and reached the central telegraph line on the 13th of July.

III.

Such battling with relentless fortune would have extinguished the spirit of adventure in most men. In the case of Mr. Giles it fanned it into a brighter flame. Refusing to be baffled, his n.o.ble perseverance was at length rewarded with a double journey across the western half of the continent. This expedition was fitted out by Sir Thomas Elder, of Adelaide, who supplied him with nineteen camels and provisions for eighteen months. The party consisted of Messrs. Giles, Tietkens, Young, A. Ross, P. Nicholls, Selah (an Afghan), and a black boy. The route proposed was from Youldah to Perth, and the start was made on the 27th July, 1875. This, though a successful, was a very trying journey. They crossed desert after desert for a distance of 1,500 miles. On one occasion they were reduced to the last extremity of thirst, and saved from perishing by the happy discovery of a spring in the Great Victoria Desert, 600 miles from the out-settlements of Western Australia. They reached Perth on the 10th November, having travelled a distance of 2,575 miles in about five months. The following is Mr. Giles's summary of the journey:--"The expedition has been successful, yet the country traversed for more than a thousand miles in a straight line was simply an undulating bed of dense scrub, except between the 125th and 127th meridians, the lat.i.tude being nearly the 30th parallel. Here an arm of the Great Southern Plain ran up and crossed our track, which, though gra.s.sy, was quite waterless. The waters were, indeed, few and far between throughout. On one occasion, a stretch of desert was encountered in which no water was obtainable for 325 miles, which only the marvellous sustaining powers of Mr. Elder's all-enduring beasts enabled us to cross. The next desert was only 180 miles to a ma.s.s of granite, where I saw natives for the first time on the expedition. They attacked us there, but we managed to drive them off. Mount Churchman was now only 160 miles distant, and we found water again before reaching it. We struck in at Toora, an out-station, where the shepherd was very hospitable. At other homesteads we were most kindly welcomed." By another journey, in a reverse direction, across the western interior, Mr. Giles returned to the central telegraph, which for so long had formed his base of operations. Leaving Perth on the 13th of January, 1876, he pushed north, and struck the Ashburton River, thence pa.s.sed through 150 miles of desert, and from the opposite side reached the Alfred and Marie Range, from which he had been so piteously thrust back in 1873. He soon after reached the Rawlinson Range, which he had discovered on that same expedition. Being now in a known country, he pa.s.sed safely through it, and reached the Peak telegraph station on the 23rd of August, 1876. His journey thence to Adelaide was ordinary travel in the Australian bush.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OTHER EXPLORERS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.--CONCLUSION.

There still remain a considerable number of the explorers of Western Australia, whose achievements, though inferior to the foregoing, would have called for particular notice had this been an exhaustive work. A very brief outline of the journeys of the most prominent is all that can be attempted here. We shall begin with Captain, afterwards Sir George, Grey, so well known in later times as a New Zealand statesman. From 1837 to 1840 he was occupied with two expeditions for the exploration of the country lying between the coast and the first range. Both journeys were exceedingly hazardous--none more so in this department of history.

During the first Prince Regent's River was explored; but the most important result was the discovery of the River Glenelg, which was described as one of the finest in Australia. The second expedition was directed to Shark's Bay, which was reached in February, 1839. The most important discovery during this journey was the River Gascoyne. The expedition was soon overtaken by terrible misfortunes, which compelled the party to make for Swan River by the quickest route. The first attempt was made in a small boat, which got no further than Gantheaume Bay, where it was dashed to pieces on the beach. To save their lives they had now to walk on foot along an inhospitable coast for 300 miles, with no more provisions than twenty pounds of flour and one pound of pork to each man. Grey struggled along and gave a heroic example to the men under his charge. When he arrived at Perth he looked like a spectre, and his most intimate friends did not know him. He has himself told us what was the secret of his moral strength:--"It may be asked," he said, "if, during such a trying period, I did not seek from religion that consolation which it is sure to afford. My answer is, yes; and I further feel a.s.sured that but for the support I derived from prayer and frequent perusal of the Scriptures, I should never have been able to have borne myself in such a manner as to have maintained discipline and confidence among the rest of the party; nor in my sufferings did I ever lose the consolation derived from a firm reliance upon the goodness of Providence. It is only those who go forth into perils and dangers, amidst which human foresight and strength can but little avail, and who find themselves day after day protected by an unseen influence, and ever and anon s.n.a.t.c.hed from the very jaws of destruction by a power which is not of this world, who can at all estimate the knowledge of one's own weakness and littleness, and the firm reliance and trust upon the goodness of the Creator which the human heart is capable of feeling."

The next in order is Mr. J. S. Roe, Surveyor-General of Western Australia. With a party of six men, eleven horses, and four months'

provisions, he started from York in September, 1848, for the southern part of the colony. Leaving the last stations of the River Avon, he went S. 1/2 S. in a direction which had not yet been explored. In a short time he got into a poor country, which contained the heads of the Avon, the Williams, the Arthur, and other rivers. In 45 miles further he came to the Pallinup River, the last water which had been crossed by Eyre on his journey along the Great Bight. He followed it to the neighbourhood of Cape Riche, the latter part of this stage being through a well-gra.s.sed country. Here a squatting station was found, and a much-needed rest obtained. The next effort was to make the Bremer Range.

In the intervening part, a river, the Jeeramungup, was discovered in a good tract of country, which was again succeeded by poor land. The Bremer Range was reached by the 3rd November. There was a hard journey thence to the Russell Range, which was near Eyre's country, and of the same description. The coast was reached opposite the Recherche Archipelago. Roe had now travelled 1,000 miles from Swan River, and found it necessary to return, and in doing so kept very much to Eyre's track as far as Cape Riche. The most important result of this journey was the discovery of several seams of coal. The return to Perth was made by way of the Pallinup River. The party had been absent 149 days, and travelled 1,800 miles.

The third explorer who shall be briefly noticed is Mr. R. Austin, who was a.s.sistant Surveyor-General. He was despatched by the Government to search for gold in the country north and east of the settled districts.

The party consisted of ten men, twenty-seven horses, and 120 days'

provisions. By the 10th of July, 1854, they had left the head of Swan River, and entered on a wretchedly poor country, in which all the bushes were dead. Another fifty miles' travel brought them to a table-land with some high mountains, the most conspicuous of which received the name of Mt. Kenneth. Soon after a severe mishap befell the expedition. The horses having eaten a poisonous plant, twenty-four died within a few hours, leaving the explorers in a very helpless condition. They pushed on, nevertheless, and displayed an admirable perseverance. On the 24th of August they reached a magnetic hill, which was called Mt. Magnet, and returned for rest to Recruit Flat. The country next traversed lay between the Great Salt Lake and West Mt. Magnet, dry, rough, and stony throughout. One curious discovery was a cave with life-like figures of animals drawn by the aborigines. Some similar exhibitions of savage art had previously been discovered by other explorers in the north and west.

The party came again to poisonous bushes, and the horses had to be watched night and day. Thence, taking a westward course, they got within fifty miles of Shark's Bay, when want of food compelled them to retreat to the Geraldine mines on the Murchison River. Here the party broke up, some returning to Perth by sea and the rest overland. The expedition failed in its princ.i.p.al object; nor was it in other respects much of a success.

It would be unpardonable to close this list without mention of Mr. F. T.

Gregory's services in the exploration of West Australia. In April, 1858, he led an expedition from the Geraldine mines to examine the country between the Gascoyne River and Mt. Murchison. This effort was attended with much success. At least a million acres of good land were discovered--quite a G.o.dsend for this colony, which is so rich in deserts. The princ.i.p.al places discovered and named were Mt. Nairn, Lockyer Range, Lyons River, the Alma, and Mt. Hall.

It is but right to add that the exploration of the interior has been largely indebted to private enterprise, of which there is no particular record. The pioneer squatters, in search of "fresh fields and pastures new," have not been afraid to invade unknown territories, nor have they gone without their reward. When a fine patch of country has been discovered they have usually been quite willing to sacrifice their merit as explorers to the caresses of private fortune, being mindful, perhaps, of the old proverb which tells us "the crow would have more to eat if he were less noisy over his food." The same cause has been helped on, also, by the search for gold, than which nothing will entice man further from home, or collect them in greater crowds. In this way much available country has lately been opened up in the Kimberley district of Western Australia, and the process is still going on, with many promising prospects. It is extremely probable that this northern region will soon be reckoned one of that colony's most valuable possessions, both in the squatting and the mining interests.

As the combined result of all the foregoing agencies, Australia has virtually ceased to be an unknown land by the close of the first century of our history. Even the great desert of Western Australia, real or supposed, has been crossed again and again, while lesser enterprises, issuing from all sides, have carried the fringe of the known territory further and further inland. Even yet the spirit of exploration keeps awake, and refuses to rest so long as a patch of the interior remains to be examined. While these sheets are pa.s.sing through the press an exploring party, supported again by Adelaide, are preparing for the interior, in order to wrest from its grasp such secrets as it may yet retain.

It is pleasing to observe how a better acquaintance with Australia, both in the way of discovery and settlement, is surely leading on to the belief that it will yet be the home of a numerous population. For a long period it was reckoned unfit to be the habitation of civilized man, except along the seaboards. The want of water, and continuous deserts, were supposed to have placed the interior beyond the pale of settlement. But experience has already revealed a system of compensations by which this hasty judgment has come to be reversed, and the back country settled by a thriving population. There are deserts, indeed, in which one might search in vain for a blade of gra.s.s, but they contain many patches of nutritious shrubs, which not only keep alive, but even fatten, stock. Water, too, is scarce, but, by another of these admirable compensations, it is capable of being stored in any quant.i.ty, and for any length of time, without becoming putrid--an advantage unknown to the home countries. The rainfall, moreover, is very scant --perhaps not more than seven inches per annum in the far interior--but then the recent borings with the diamond drill have shown that an abundant supply may be obtained from subterranean sources. The latest announcement made to us, now standing on the threshold of the centennial year, is the most encouraging of all. By the ticking of the telegraph we learn that an experiment at Barcaldine, in Queensland, has brought to the surface of the bore a daily discharge of something approaching to 100,000 gallons of water fit for all purposes. Experience is ever revealing new relations of material adaptability. There is a sympathy between a country and its inhabitants, which may have a deeper foundation than the fancy of the poet. The land and the people are the complements of one another. "G.o.d made the earth to be inhabited," and there is now no fear of Australia being an exception to the rule.