HARDY PIONEER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 5, 7 January 1930, Page 7

HARDY PIONEER

JN7G THE UNKNOWN

UNVEILING AUSTRALIA

STURT'S CENTENARY

At this time one hundred years ago the most important inland journey of discovery in the history of Australia was in progress. A century is a small span of time in the life of a nation. England can count 20 centuries of recorded history, and oven that is a comparatively short period when we remember the thousands of years of civilisation that can with certainty be attributed to Egypt. But Australia is the newest land, politically, on the map of the globe, though geologically of incalculable antiquity; and there is not yet any event connected -with the settlement of white people upon this continent that has attained a second centenary. Whatever events that may, be considered worthy of celebration that occur in the future, however, we may bo sure that Charles Sturt's great journey down the Murrumbidgee in November and December, 1829,.his discovery of the Murray on 14th January, 1830, and'the further discovery on the 23rd of that month that the Darling is an artery of the vast Murray system, will always be placed among the outstanding events in Australian annals, says a recent issue of the "Australasian." The man was worthy to earn the fame which came to him from this splendid achievement. Of all the explorers of Australia, Sturt is not only, the greatest on account of what he did by the magnitude of his discoveries and the importance of their consequences—but he shines out by virtue of his nobility of character,, the scientific spirit which guided his researches, and the unselfishness, of ■ his devotion to arduous and useful tasks. One of the most recent writers. upon hia career, Mr. Grenfell Price, of Adelaide, speaks of his "singularly modest and beautiful nature," and those adjectives are completely appropriate. Sixty years ago, too, when the Boyal Geographical Society paid him signal honour, the president, Sir EodencK Murehison, admirably said:— "Of the many hardy and cncTgetie men to whom we owe our knowledge of. the interior of Austrato Charles Sturt is perhaps the most eminent. ' To him. we are indebted for the great eastern ■water Bystem of that vast island. To him we are also indebted for tho solution of the great geographical problem, the true character of the eastern interior of Australia, which, until his expedition of 1844, was by many geographers believed to consist of ono great inland sea. And further, to Sturt's instructive example we owe the series of distinguished explorers, such as Eyre, M'Dougall, Stuart, and others, who have since so worthily and successfully trodden in his footsteps." PUTTINO BIVBKS ON THE MAP. That is weighty testimony to the distinguished merits of Charles Sturt, and not a word of it is over-praise. He ranks as one of the illustrious pathfinders of history. Fortunately he wa3 also gifted with a faculty for literary expression, which enabled him to relate tho stories of his three memorable journeys of exploration in vivid and. vigorous English; and there arc no better narratives- of the kind -pertaining to Australian discovery than Sturt'3 accounts of his discovery of the Darling in 1828, his boat journey down the Murray in 1829-30, and his amazing expedition into Central Australia in 184-1. Anyone,who reads his own .account of the exploit of a century ago can feel tha thrill experienced by the brave men, feeling their way down the Murrumbidgee, when, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of 14th January, ' "we were hurried into a broad and noble river." From the point when the Murray was entered we follow Sturt's story with, breathless interest till the climax came, when the boat reached the junction of the Darling and the Murray, and the explorer realised that the river which poured its waters into the main stream was that which he had reached two /ears before. ; EVERY EXCUSE. We feel inclined to burst into a cheer, as his men did when, as he tells us:—, ■•..■' "I directed the Union Jack to be hoisted, and, giving way, to our satisfaction, we all stood up in the boat and gave three distinct cheers. It was an English feeling, an ebullition^ an overflow, which I am ready to. admit that our situation and circumstances will alone excuse." - How typical of a certain style of English character is that touch! These men had solved a problem of Australian geography which the least imaginative among them must have realised to be fraught with enormous consequences, but their leader thought their ebullition of feeling was something to bo "excused!" To cheer was almost in■decorous, even in those wild solitudes. Discovering a great new field for colonisation was all in the days' work; they had to get on with the job, and nof make too much fuss about it! But that journey, which reached its termination at Lake Alexandrina in February, opened the way to the founding of South Australia. The news of the discovery came in the nick of time to give the new school of "systematic colonisers," whose ideas were provided for them by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a territory within which to experiment. It was accordingly in December, 1830, that the Wakefieldians directed their attention to the "magnificent river just discovered by Captain Sturt," as marking the region appropriate for a new settlement. It is too late now t» make a change, but we can but regret that Sturt's honoured name was not given to tho Murray.