The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work Part 17

In 1883, Favenc, on a private expedition to report on pastoral country, traced the heads of several of the rivers of the Carpentarian Gulf, and in the following year left the north Newcastle Waters to examine and trace the Macarthur River. The river was followed from its source to the sea, and a large extent of valuable pastoral country and several permanent springs found in its valley; a large tributary, the Kilgour, was also discovered and named. These short excursions, and some exploratory trips made by MacPhee, east of Daly Waters, may be said to have concluded exploration between the line and the Queensland border.

In 1883, the South Australian Government despatched an expedition in charge of David Lindsay to complete the survey of Arnhem's Land. Lindsay left the Katherine station, and proceeded to Blue Mud Bay. On the way the party had a narrow escape of ma.s.sacre at the hands of the blacks, who speared four horses, and made an attempt to surprise the camp of the whites. Lindsay had trouble with his horses in the stony, broken tableland that had nearly baffled Leichhardt; and from one misfortune and another, lost a great number of them. In fact, at one time, so rough was the country that he antic.i.p.ated having to abandon his horses and make his way into the telegraph station on foot. On the whole, however, the country was favourably reported on, particularly with regard to tropical agriculture.

Another journey was undertaken about this time by O'Donnell and Carr-Boyd, who left the Katherine River and pushed across the border into Western Australia. They succeeded in finding a large amount of pastoral country; but no important geographical discoveries were made.

In 1884 H. Stockdale, who had had considerable experience in the southern colonies, and was an old bushman, made an excursion from Cambridge Gulf to the south through the Kimberley district. Stockdale found well-gra.s.sed country with numerous permanently-watered creeks. When he came to the creek which he named Buchanan Creek, he formed a depot. On his return from an expedition to the south with three men, he found that during his absence the men left in charge of it had been hunting kangaroos with the horses instead of allowing them to rest. There were other irregularities as well, and Stockdale found his resources too much reduced, both in horseflesh and rations, to continue the exploration. They started for the telegraph line, but on the way the two men who had been misbehaving requested to be left behind. As they persisted in their wish, there was nothing left but to accede to it. The two men, with as much rations as could be spared, arms, and powder and shot, were then left at their own request on a permanent creek in a country where game could be obtained.

Stockdale himself had to undergo some hardship before reaching the Overland Line. Although search was made for the two men, they were never afterwards found.

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 lat.i.tude 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 a.s.sisted by the South Australian Government with the loan of camels. The leader was Captain V. Barclay, an old South Australian surveyor, whose name has already been mentioned in these pages.

Barclay had been born in Lancashire, at Bury, on the 6th of January, 1845. He had entered the Royal Navy in 1860, and had been severely wounded on board H.M.S. Ill.u.s.trious by a gun breaking loose when at target practice. He had emigrated to Tasmania in the seventies, and in 1877 had been appointed by the South Australian Government to explore the country lying between the line and the Queensland border, a notice of which occurs in the preceding pages.

The party, lightly equipped to be more effective, was absent from Oodnadatta from July 24th until December 5th 1904, and in that time accomplished much useful work in the face of great difficulties. On account of the great heat, the expedition had to resort to travelling by night and resting by day. The country was princ.i.p.ally high sandy ridges, some so steep that it was not easy to find crossing-places. They had to sacrifice a lot of valuable stores, personal effects, and a valuable collection of native curios, all chiefly on account of the shortness of water.

By this date the whole of the central portion of Australia was known, and the greater part of it mapped; while all the permanently-watered country had been rapidly utilised by the pastoralists.

PART 3. THE WEST.

[Ill.u.s.tration. John Septimus Roe, First Surveyor-General of West Australia.]

CHAPTER 17. ROE, GREY, AND GREGORY.

17.1. ROE AND THE PIONEERS.

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 sullen hostility. Nor did she lure the first explorers inland with a smiling face of welcome once the outworks had been forced, as she had drawn Evans when he reached the head-waters of the Macquarie and Lachlan.

Beyond the sources of the western coastal streams, she fought silently for every eastward mile of vantage ground, spreading before the adventurous intruder the salt lake and the arid desert.

As far back as 1791, George Vancouver, a whilom middy of Cook's, discovered and named King George's Sound, when in command of H.M.S.

Discovery. He formally took possession of the adjacent country, and remained there some days, making a careful survey of both the inner and outer harbours.

On the 9th of December, 1826, Sir Ralph Darling, then Governor of New South Wales, sent Major Lockyer, of the 57th, with a detachment of the 39th, a regiment intimately a.s.sociated with the early settlement of Australia, to form a settlement at King George's Sound, where they landed on the 25th of December of the same year. This settlement was established in order to forestall the French, who, according to rumour, intended to occupy the harbour and adjacent lands.

On the 17th of January, 1827, Captain James Stirling, of H.M.S. Success, left Sydney, intending to survey those portions of the west coast unvisited by Lieutenant King, and also to investigate the nature of the country in the neighbourhood of the Swan River with a view to its suitability for settlement. Stirling was accompanied by Charles Fraser, who had considerable experience as adviser upon Australian sites for settlement. Both Stirling and Fraser reported favourably on the Swan River; and the latter waxing enthusiastic on its eligibility, it was decided to found a new colony there.

In 1829, Captain Fremantle of H.M.S. Challenger hoisted the British flag at the mouth of the Swan River, and thenceforth the whole of the Australian continent was under British sway. Captain, now Lieutenant-Governor, Stirling arrived a month later in the transport Parmelia, and the free colony of Western Australia was launched on its varied career.

The names first mentioned in the annals of land exploration in Western Australia are those of Alexander Collie and Lieutenant William Preston, who together explored the country on the coast between c.o.c.kburn Sound and Geographe Bay. This was in November, 1829, and in the following month Dr.

J.B. Wilson, who came to the Sound with Captain Barker on the abandonment of Raffles Bay, made an excursion from the Sound and discovered and named the Denmark River.

In a pa.s.sage in a letter written by R.M. Davis, of the medical staff, to Charles Fraser, the botanist, there is a detailed reference to this trip:--

"Dr. Wilson, who came here with Captain Barker, started in a direction to Swan Port (Swan River) with a party of men, and in eleven days went over at least two hundred miles of ground. He says, without fear of contradiction in future, that there is far greater proportion of good land in this direction than in any other part of Australia that he had been in, and also wood of large growth, with innumerable rivers. He ascended a very high mountain, which he called Mount Lindsay, in honour of the 39th regiment."

On the 22nd of March, 1830, we first hear of the exploring feats of Lieutenant Roe, R.N., the Surveyor-General of the new colony. Captain John Septimus Roe was born in 1797, and entered the navy. He accompanied Captain P. King to explore the north and north-west coasts of Australia, in 1818, and was a member of King's expedition in 1821. He was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia, and held that position for forty-two years. He is commonly styled the father of western exploration.

He died at Perth on May 28th, 1878. Mrs. Roe, who accompanied her husband to Western Australia in 1829, pre-deceased him in 1870.

On the date mentioned in 1830, Roe was in the field exploring in the vicinity of Cape Naturaliste. Afterwards he was active in the country between the head-waters of the Kalgan and Hay Rivers. In 1836 he first tried serious conclusions with the inland country of Western Australia, when he headed an expedition to explore the tableland that lies to the north and east of Perth. The country was dreary and depressing, and, judging from its configuration and natural properties, he was unable to recommend it as a site for settlement or to depict it as the entrance to more pleasant lands beyond. He reached Lake Brown, near the western boundary of the present Yilgarn goldfield; but the only noteworthy features that he perceived were the salt lakes that are now so well-known throughout Western Australia. In 1839, Roe distinguished himself by rescuing Grey's dismembered party. On the 14th of September, 1848, he started to make an attempt at further discovery to the eastward. He had with him six men, twelve horses, and three months' provisions. Upon leaving the outer settlements, they encountered the same depressing country as before. Having crossed it, they were turned from their course by scrub of exceeding density, which in turn was succeeded by sandy desert plains. Foiled for the time being they made for the south coast, where they recruited their strength at one of the outlying settlements.

On the 18th they started again, and followed up the course of the Pallinup River. They ascended a branch coming from the north-east, and for a time revelled in the spectacle of well-gra.s.sed and promising valleys; but they soon again came amongst the scrub and sand plains of the inland desert. Sighting a granite range to the eastward, they made towards it, but the outlook from its summit brought nothing but exceeding disappointment. Fortunately the weather was showery, and the lack of water did not induce such keen anxiety as the total absence of gra.s.s.

Still pushing to the eastward, they found their difficulties increase at every step. To the perils of travel through dense thickets and over barren, scorching plains, there was now added the risk of death from thirst. It was not until after days of extreme privation that they reached some elevated peaks, where they obtained a little gra.s.s and water.

Their course lay now to the south-east, towards the range sighted by Eyre, and named the Russell Range, and there commenced a desperate struggle with the intervening desert.

So weak were the horses and so compact the belts of scrub, that in three days they had traversed only fifty miles. After being four days and three nights without water for the horses, they reached a rugged hill which they named Mount Riley, where they were relieved by a scant supply.

Thence it was but fifty miles to the Russell Range, but the journey involved a repet.i.tion of the worst sufferings they had endured. The scrub disputed their pa.s.sage the whole route, being often so dense as to defy the use of the axe, and many long detours had to be made before they reached their goal.

Every hope they had entertained of a change for the better was shattered by an inspection of the country to which they had so laboriously penetrated. The range, destined to be a.s.sociated with so many subsequent important explorations, was a ma.s.s of naked rocks, and from the summit they could see nothing but the interminable scrub thickets, and in the distance the thin blue line of ocean. Fortunately they found a little gra.s.s and water, which saved the lives of their animals. They had discovered a coal seam at the mouth of the Murchison River, and now, on their return journey, they found another at the Fitzgerald River. This was Roe's longest and most important expedition, and it placed him in the front rank of Australian explorers.

Amongst the very early explorers who did as good work as the scanty opportunities permitted, was Ensign R. Dale, of the 63rd Regiment, who pushed east of the Darling Range. Bannister, Moore, and Bunbury are other noteworthy names amongst those of the early discoverers.

17.2. SIR GEORGE GREY.

[Ill.u.s.tration. Sir George Grey.]

In 1837 an expedition in charge of Captain George Grey and Lieutenant Lushington was sent out from England to the Cape of Good Hope. It was under instructions from Lord Glenelg, and was to procure a small vessel at the Cape to convey the party and their stores to the most convenient point in the vicinity of the Prince Regent's River on the coast. Once landed there, the party was to take such a course as would lead them in the direction of the great opening behind Dampier's Land, where they were to make every endeavour to cross to the Swan River.

The schooner Lynher was chartered at the Cape, and on the 3rd of December, 1837, the party was landed at Hanover Bay, with large quant.i.ties of livestock, stores, seeds, and plants. Whilst the schooner proceeded to Timor for ponies, Grey employed the time in forming a garden, building sheds for the stores, and in exploring the country in the neighbourhood of Hanover Bay. On the 9th of December, he hoisted the British flag and went through the ceremony of taking possession. On the 17th of January the Lynher returned, and nearly a month later Grey and his party, which now numbered twelve, started from the coast with twenty-six half-broken Timor ponies as baggage-carriers, and some sheep and goats.

The rainy season had now set in, and many of the stock succ.u.mbed almost at the outset, whilst their route proved a veritable tangle of steep spurs and deep ravines. On the 11th of February they came into collision with the natives, and Grey was severely wounded in the hip with a spear.

When he had recovered sufficiently to be lifted on to one of the ponies, a fresh start was made, and on the 2nd of March his perseverance was rewarded by the discovery of a river which he named the Glenelg. He followed the course of this river upwards, and reported the country as good, being well-gra.s.sed and watered. Sometimes his route lay along the river's bank; at other times by keeping to the foot of a sandstone ridge he was enabled to avoid detours around many wearisome bends.

[Ill.u.s.tration. Rock Painting, North-Western Australia.]

The party continued along the Glenelg for many days, until indeed they were checked by a large tributary coming from the north. As both the river and the tributary were here much swollen, they had to fall back on the range. It was among the recesses of this range that Grey discovered some curious cave paintings of the blacks, in which the aboriginal figures were represented as clothed.

[*Footnote.] A subsequent photograph of these paintings, by Brockman, is reproduced in Chapter 20.

Unable to find a pa.s.s through the mountains, and enfeebled by his wound, Grey determined to retrace his steps. As a last resort he sent Lushington some distance ahead, but there was no noticeable change to report in the aspect of the country. Hanover Bay was reached on the 15th of April. The Lynher was waiting there at anchor, and H.M.S. Beagle was lying in Port George the Fourth, awaiting the return of Captain Stokes, who was away exploring the coast. The party having embarked, the Lynher sailed for the Isle of France, where they safely arrived. Thus ended Captain Grey's first expedition, which is interesting chiefly as a proof of the heroic qualities of its members; for the Glenelg River has never invited settlement, and has yet to prove that it possesses any considerable economic value.

During January, 1839, Grey explored the country between the Williams and the Leschenhault, while searching for a settler who had been lost in the bush.

On the 17th of February in the same year, Grey, who had been back endeavouring to persuade Sir James Stirling to a.s.sist him in his explorations, was enabled to start on another exploring enterprise. The object of this, his second important expedition, was to examine the undiscovered parts of Shark's Bay, and to make excursions as far inland as circ.u.mstances permitted. The party comprised four of the members of his first expedition, five other men, and a Western Australian aboriginal, and they left Fremantle in an American whaler, taking three whale-boats with them. They were duly landed at Bernier Island, where their troubles commenced at once. The whaler sailed away, taking with her by mistake the whole of their supply of tobacco. There was no water on the island, and, in their first attempt to start, one of the boats was smashed and nearly half a ton of stores lost. The next day they succeeded in making Dorre Island, but that night both the remaining boats were driven ash.o.r.e by a violent storm. Two or three days were spent in making good the damage, when they succeeded in making the mainland, and obtained a supply of fresh water. They had landed at or near the mouth of a stream which afterwards proved to be the second longest river in Western Australia. Grey named it the Gascoyne, and found that it was then dry beyond the limit of tidal influence. They then pulled up the coast, but one night, when effecting a landing, both boats were swamped, and their previously-damaged provisions suffered another soaking. This accident kept them prisoners for a week till the wind and surf had abated. Tired, hungry, and ill, they were here hara.s.sed by frequent threats and one actual attack by the blacks. A slight break in the weather tempted them forth once more, and, having succeeded in righting the boats, they made for the mouth of the Gascoyne, where they re-filled their water-beakers.

On March 20th they made a desperate effort in the teeth of foul weather to fetch their depot on Bernier Island. We may picture their dismay when they found that during their absence a hurricane had swept the island, and scattered their cherished stores to the four winds.

Their position was now as desperate as could be imagined: the southerly winds had set in, and they had to coast along a surf-beaten sh.o.r.e against a head wind. Their food was scanty, and they were weak with the constant toils they had undergone. There was nothing for it, however, but to put to sea again, and they succeeded in reaching Gantheaume Bay on the 31st of March. Fate had not yet spent all her wrath on them, and in attempting a landing, Grey's boat was dashed to destruction upon a rock, and the other received such a buffeting as to place it beyond repair. The only hope of safety lay in an overland march to Perth, three hundred miles away, upon their twenty pounds of damaged flour and one pound of salt pork per man; and yet, so wearied were they with the unceasing battle against wind and sea, that they even welcomed this hazardous prospect as a change for the better.

They had not proceeded far before differences of opinion arose. Grey naturally wished the men to cover the ground as quickly as possible whilst their strength lasted, whilst they favoured slow marches, relieved by frequent rests. Grey, who recognised that in their weakened condition they could not replenish their scanty food supplies from the native game, held firmly to his opinion, and made strenuous efforts to quicken their progress; but the comparative safety of the sh.o.r.e had lulled his followers into a feeling of false security; and after goading them along for a hundred miles, bearing the chief burden of the march and sharing much of his scanty food with the black boy, Grey left them to push onwards, and if possible send them a.s.sistance. He took two or three picked men with him, and after terrible sufferings and privations, reached Perth, whence a rescue party was immediately despatched. This party found only one man, Charles Wood, who by more closely following Grey's instructions, had made better progress than the others. The remaining five could not be found, and at the end of a fortnight the rescuers were forced to return on account of the lack of provisions. Roe immediately left with another party, and, after experiencing trouble in tracking the erratic wanderings of the unfortunates, came upon most of them hopelessly regarding a face of rock that stopped their march along the beach, unable to muster sufficient strength to climb it. They had then been three days without water, having nothing in their canteens but a loathsome subst.i.tute.

One of them, Smith, a lad of eighteen who had accompanied the expedition as a volunteer, had died two days before the rescue; his body was recovered and buried in the wilderness. Walker, the surgeon and second in charge, was still absent; but he had voluntarily left the main body and had pushed on for a.s.sistance towards Fremantle, which he safely reached.

During these unfortunate expeditions, Grey had shown a generous spirit of self-sacrifice combined with high courage and a fine enthusiasm for geographical discovery. But his lack of experience and his ignorance of the local seasonal conditions counterbalanced these, and explained his failures. Afterwards he became Acting Government Resident at Albany, on King George's Sound, and he was at a critical period Governor of South Australia. But Australia proper saw little of him in his after prime, and his fame was built up elsewhere, in New Zealand and at the Cape of Good Hope.

Grey's reports left doubt as to the precise value of the country he traversed under such trying circ.u.mstances, but he is justly credited with the discovery of many rivers on the west coast -- the Grey, the Buller, the Chapman, the Greenough, the Arrowsmith, the Hutt, the Bowyer, and those important streams, the Murchison and the Gascoyne.