"DIG."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

"DIG."

DRAMA OF BURKE AND WILLS. DYING MEN'S CACHE. Australians cannot be accused of neglecting the heroic stories of pioneering ami exploration in tlieir country's past. The publishers (Angus and Robertson, Sydney) of Frank Clune's narrative of the Burke and Wills expedition, threequarters of a century ago, state that the demand for the book was so great that the first edition was bought up by booksellers before it was off the press. The second edition was issued simultaneously with the first. The tragic tale of Robert O'Hara Burke and his young comrade, W. G. Wills, has often been told by historians. This book, simply titled "Dig," is different in its style and treatment from anything that has preceded it. It partakes of the manner of an historical novel; written with an often slangy freedom. To borrow something of the author's own vivacious phraseology, it is fair dinkum Aussie. Frank Clune's family associations with Australia go back nearly a century. His mother was the thirteenth of a family of sixteen, all of whom were born in tents, on the Ballarat and other gold-diggings. This is his fourth book on Australian scenes and history. Success and Failure. The Burke and Wills expedition, through the heart of Australia from Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria, in 1860-02. was an epic of blended success and failure; a 6plendid effort, terribly mishandled through no fault of the brave leaders, and ending in their deaths far out in the desert lands. Burke and Wills readied the northern coast, and perished on the return journey. Mr. Clune makes it probably the most absorbing real-life story that ever came out of Australia. He has skilfully woven all his mass of material into a narrative that surpasses novels. He does not spare the blunderers and the deserters whose defects helped to bring the two explorers to grief after accomplishing their wonderful feat of the transcontinental traverse. The book takes its title from the word "dig," with dates and directions, marked deeply on blazed eoolabah trees at Cooper's Creek, beneath which Wills had deposited his diary of the crossing. ,Yet none of the subordinates who visited the place later troubled to obey the directions. Not until Alfred Howitt was dispatched from Melbourne in search of the explorers, in 18(51, only to find them dead, was tho cache opened. Pictures have been painted of tho finding of Burke's skeleton lying whitening on the sand, with a rusty pistol by its side. In their last days the explorers were reduced to eating the pounded up seeds of nardoo, a wild plant like wheat, one of the foods of the natives. But its nutritive quality by itself was insufficient; the explorers simply starved to death. An able explorer who led a relief party from the north was William Landsborough, of Queensland. His name and those of the men for whom he searched were given honour in New Zealand, after von Haast's discovery of the far South Pass that bears his name. The three principal feeders of the Haast River are the alpine torrents called the Burke, Wiljs ajid Landsborough. After the Pathfinders. In less than ten years, Mr. Clune records, hundreds of thousands of acres of previously unknown country were carrying stock in the regions opened to knowledge bv Burke, Wills, Landsborough and the lesser explorers. There are countless illuminating notes on the far back hot country where settlement followed in the wake of the pathfinders. There is this about a far-out township: "One-pub Innamincka, a threeshack village, drowses on the side of a red g,bbcr hill. Although beer is four bob a bottle there is almost an acre of empties alongside the pub. and I can assure you that this bottle heap is at least five feet high." The author calls but mo,,ntain ° f glass "a dazzling out spiritless monument to thirst." In Palestine. of ß £,H ft £ °- to the storv of trad-blazing tragedy, there is a tale ot the two Australian Light Horse troopers whose horses were shot under them on outpost duty after the l.attlTl,ev eC s' S f f' in } hc I>:,,estine campaign" l r 7- f ' ,ot to the "Parent base W V ,el -/ ad( " PS an,t '"'dies. The heat was terrific, and their water-bottles Z n T^ Cm, ' Ued - As ni " ht wa s fall tramn the T™' 1 , d * y of their lo »S theTicWV U T ,ed weai % Awards t ie picket lines of a British Yeomanrv ~S'° m ° ""'7 ■"alt. Who goes there?" "Burke and Wills " una n, . «»«~i »..<> t, i"; rsr S3? Z™t"'