STURT'S EXPEDITION INTO THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, 8 November 1845, Page 143

STURT'S EXPEDITION INTO THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA.

[Extracted from Captain Sturt'a despatch to the Colonial Secretary of South Australia.]

At the Dep6t, in Longitude 141' 30* E. Latitude 29' 40' 1 2" S., June 5, 1 845.

I believe that in my letter of the 17th October, 1844, I reported that I had passed along the Darling without any rupture with the natives, and that the reports I had heard at Lake Victoria of the massacre of a party of Europeans had proved incorrect; the whole story having been based on Major Mitchell's rupture with the natives in 1836. I also reported that I was about to leave the camp on an excursion to the north-west, to examine the country seen by Mr. Poole. I accordingly left Cawndilla, to which place I had moved the camp from the junction of the Williorara with the Darling on the 21st of the* month, accompanied by Mr. Browne, two of my men, and a native. We crossed a plain of about thirty miles in breadth, on a W.N.W. course, and at that distance struck a creek, which led us on a bearing of 132' to a gap in the front line of 6ome hills, towards which we were approaching. Passing through this gap, we gradually rose to an elevated table land surrounded on all sides by ranges. Whilst we were on the Darling, a flood occurred in that river, which I had hoped was caused by rains in the hills laid down by Sir Thomas Mitchell, and that they were conveyed into the Darling by the channel of the Williorara, in which case I should have found an easy entrance into the N.W. interior along its banks ; my object being to gain a position north of Mount Arden. On my arrival at that place I had been disappointed in this expectation, the Williorara being nothing more than a channel of communication between the river and the basins of Cawndilla and Minandichi. My object, therefore, in the present excursion, was as much to discover the means by which to advance the party to the N.W., and to remove it from a populous neighbourhood, as to examine the country. Although we were obliged to dig wells in the lower part of the creek for the supply of water, we found several ponds nearer the ranges, in which there was a sufficient supply of water for our cattle for a month. On gaining the table land, therefore, I turned to the north, and passing through another gap in the ranges, returned to the camp by a line somewhat to the eastward of that by which I had left, and immediately removed the , party to the hills.

On the 6th November, I again proceeded to the N.W. with the same party, but without a native. At about fifteen miles we surmounted the ranges, and descended to a plain of apparently boundless extent. The ranges trended to the north, but as I wished to pursue a N.W. course, I moved obliquely to them. For the first fifteen miles we passed over barren stony plains, from which we entered a low brush, and on issuing from it, we found ourselves in a country in which long narrow flats alternated with sandy ridges, on which cypresses were growing, and on which there was no want of grass. I had brought the light cart with me, and had filled it with water, and penetrated into this country until our supply was exhausted, when we were obliged to turn back without having been able to ascertain to what distance this dreary region extended. We had scarcely reached the hills on our return to the camp when it commenced to rain, and continued to do so for two days. On reaching it, therefore, I determined to avail myself of so favourable an opportunity, by sending Mr. Poole to the N.W., to pass the point to which I had gone, latitude 30' 29', and, if possible, to gain Lake Torrens. Mr. Poole left me on the morning of the 18th, and pursued the course I bad laid down for him until he passed latitude 29' 44', when seeing no likelihood of a change of country, and as, from his observation and reckoning, he considered that he ought to have been at the lake, he turned to the westward, and ultimately reached its shores opposite to three remarkable peaks, laid down by Mr. Eyre. At this extreme end, Lake Torrens appeared to Mr. Poole to consist of a succession of lakes formed by the drainage from the hills ; but he could not see very far to the north, in which direction it might have been unbroken. Its waters were slightly salt, and its bed was composed of black mud, thinly encrusted with salt; and although the lake appeared to be narrower here than Mr. Poole expected to have seen, he says that the country for twenty miles as you approach Lake Torrens is so peculiar, that any one looking down upon it from such lofty eminences as Mount Serle and Mount Hopeless, would naturally conclude that the whole was the large bed of a lake. Mr. Poole would have continued the examination of Lake Torrens more to the north, but he was apprehensive that his retreat would be cut off by the evaporation of the water left on the plains by the late rains, and he consequently returned back, after a fatiguing journey of two hundred and fifty miles, during which he was exposed to great heat; and in his anxiety to accomplish what he knew was desirable, had almost exceeded the bounds of prudence as regarded his personal safety. Both he and Mr. Browne, whom I sent with him in consequence of his having been with me in the same direction, returned a good deal fatigued from this long excursion. I had in the meantime moved the party over the ranges to the plains, and had encamped on a creek about ninety miles in advance from our late station. As it was clear we could not hope to find water in the sandy deserts into which we had penetrated, I sent Mr. Poole, on the 11th December, to the north, directing him to keep nearer in to the ranges, with a view to his crossing any creeks issuing from them. On, this occasion he gained latitude 29' 14', and--, succeeded in finding considerable supplies of water in several creeks which be intersected,

During Mr. Poole's absence, I made an excursion of from eighty to ninety miles to the eastward, to ascertain the nature of the country on both sides of me as I proceeded northwards, but with no favourable result. On Mr. Poole' s return I moved on the party, and on the 11th January arrived at a long waterhole in a creek, to which the creek on which we have subsequently formed our depdt is a tributary. On the 14th of the month I left the canip with a party of two men, and proceeded with Mr. Browne to the north. Mr. Poole attended me the first day, who was to return on the following day, and in the event of our finding water, was to have moved the party to it during my absence ; but, as we were not so fortunate, I directed him, on his return home, to examine a creek a little to the westward of our line, when he was gradually drawn to this creek, on which we have found a secure and undisturbed asylum since the 27th of January last. In the meantime I crossed a remarkable group of hills, which proved to be the terminating group to the north, although they extended in broken and irregular masses to the eastward. From a small peak in this group we saw two small hills on a bearing of 316', distant from forty to forty-five miles ; I therefore descended again to the plains, and hoping to obtain a good view of the interior from their summit, I made at once for them. At about six miles from the hills we entered a scrub; and at seven miles found a supply of water in a small creek, but none afterwards. Soon after entering the scrub we got into a country alternating, as before, with long, narrow flats and sandy ridges, but they were here destitute of cypresses; and this kind of country continued to the hills, which we reached at sunset. We could see nothing from their most elevated point but a universal scrub. From the S. W. to the N.E. the horizon was unbroken ; and the view direct to the north was over as gloomy and as forbidding a region as man ever gazed upon. But on our way to these hills, and on our return from them, we experienced the most oppressive heat among the ridges of sand. The wind blew in our faces with the constancy and intensity of a hot blast from a furnace, insomuch that we had a difficulty in breathing so rarified an atmosphere. On the 20th, we returned to the ranges, and thence to the camp, where, to my utter astonishment, I found the water I had left in the tanks entirely evaporated, and Mr. Poole drawing his supplies from a well ; but the fortunate discovery he had made on his way home enabled me at once to move the party to a place of permanent security; for our consumption of water at this time was at the rate of from a thousand to eleven hundred gallons a day, with the thermometer in a mean of 107' at two, p.m., in the shade. I had, up to this period, had to look as well to our retreat as to our advance, and to provide for both ; but I was now enabled to cast all anxiety, as regarded our retreat, from my mind, since Providence had guided us, we now knew, to the only spot in these dry and desolate regions which could have supplied our wants ; and it was the necessity that existed for our making out such a place of safety that obliged us to the repeated and fatiguing journeys to which I have drawn his Excellency's attention. It was about this time, the end of January, that Mr. Poole, Mr. Brown, and myself, began to feel the effects of scurvy. We had sore and almost ulcerated gums, violent headaches, a constant coppery taste in the mouth, with other symptoms of that virulent disease : I had constant, though not profuse, bleeding at the nose. We attributed this attack to our having been obliged, on our rapid journeys, to use salt meat, when weakened by the intense heat of the season ; but as we took every precaution to check the disorder, we hoped it would have forsaken us. Feeling dissatisfied at the result of my last journey to the north, and both Mr. Poole and Mr. Browne being too unwell for active duties, I determined again to push into the interior in that direction, to ascertain if possible the nature and extent of the desert there. Accordingly, on the Bth of February, I again left the camp, attended by Mr. Stuart, my draftsman ; Flood, my stockman ; and Joseph Colley, an excellent young man I have with me, whose moral courage and feeling I had every reason to think would support him in the event of his being tried in any way. My plan was, to proceed to the most distant water of which I knew, to the north ; there to leave Mr. Stuart to sketch in the ranges, and Flood to take charge of my horse ; to take a supply of water in the light cart, and to push on foot with Joseph into the desert, in the hope that I should sooner or later arrive at, or see, some change of country. Having arrived at , the water-holes, we filled up our casks ; and, on the morning of the 1 1 th, we proceeded on our journey, leaving Mr. Stuart and Flood as I had proposed. I pursued a course of 5' to the west of north, which took me to the right of the hills on which I had been with Mr. Browne. We soon got into a country such as I have already described. As we advanced, however, the flats became narrower, and the sandy ridges appeared closer, succeeding each other like the waves of a tempestuous sea. There was, at the first, a little grass on the flats, but at length they became sandy, and the ridges less elevated. It appeared, indeed, that the ridges had been levelled by successive gales of wind, at?i had filled up the hollows. The whole region was now sand, on which spnrifex alone was growing, if I except a hw stunted hakea bushes that were scattered about ; so that if I had not brought a few oats with roe for the horse, he would havt starved. On the 13th, at noon, my observations and reckoning placed me in latitude 28' 11' 15", and at this point my horse failed. I therefore took him out of the cart, and with Joseph walked to a distance of from twelve to thirteen

miles, as I wished, if possible, to pass the 28th meridian. I was then nearly abreast of More ton Bay in point of latitude, more than 200 miles to the westward of the Darling, and in longitude 141* 22', as near as I could judge; and yet, as I looked round me from the top of a small sandhill I had ascended, I could see no change in the terrible desert into which I had penetrated. The horizon was unbroken by a single mound, from north round to north again, and it was as level as that of the ocean. My view to the north extended abouth eight miles; but I did not venture to compass that distance, only perhaps to have overlooked a similar heart-rending and desolate scene. I turned my back, therefore, upon it, and returned to the cart ; and the next day pushed on for the water-holes, which I reached on the 16th, at sunset, with great difficulty. On coming to this water-hole, I had kept to the left of my former line across the ranges ; and I had observed that a creek, which I had been led to believe exhausted itself in the plains to the eastward, did not really do so, but continued, with some promise, to the westward. This creek I desired Flood to examine during my absence ; and he now informed me that he thought it worthy my further scrutiny. I therefore left Joseph with the cart, and, taking Mr. Stuart and Flood with me, rode down the creek, the first day, to a distance of thirty miles, when we arrived at two large water-holes — at which a number of natives had* been only a day or two before — in which but little water now remained ; and at these we stopped and slept. The next morning, in tracing the creek down, we found that at about a mile it spread over an immense flat. With some difficulty we recovered its channel again, and traced it for about eight miles through a narrow but well-wooded valley; its general course having led us somewhat to the southward of west. At eight miles, it appeared suddenly to terminate against an embankment of white clay and sand. There was, however, a gap in this embankment, over which, it immediately Btruck me, the superfluous waters are carried off. On ascending this embankment, we saw beneath us a beautiful enclosure of about seven miles in circumference, fenced in by this bank. It was studded with fine trees, and covered with grass. By a reference to the chart, our position, as far as I can lay it down from rough bearings, being in latitude 28* 6' 30", and in longitude 140' 44', his Excellency will observe that we had again entered the province; and it may be worthy of remark, that the richest piece of land we have found has been within its boundaries. It is into this enclosure that the creek falls ; and having satisfied myself that it also terminates in it, I rode on to the N.W. ; but I was driven back from the want of water, and because neither could my men or horses bear up against the intense heat to which we were exposed. Flood complained that the crown of his head was burning, and the animals drooped as if overcome by extreme drowsiness. I stopped, therefore, to take shelter under a hakea bush until the heat of the day should have subsided, and then returned to the water we had left in the morning, and the next day regained the hills. It may give his Excellency some idea of the heat to which we were exposed, when I assure you that I found the thermometer which I had left with Joseph, and which was fixed in the shade of a large tree, four feet from the ground, stationary at 135* of Fahrenheit at half-past two, p.m., and that in the direct rays of the sun it rose to 157". It had, on a former occasion, when Mr. Browne was with me, stood at 132' in the shade, and 153* in the sun.

I returned from this excursion with the full conviction on my mind, that I had twice been within fifty, perhaps thirty, miles of an inland sea. It was, in truth, impossible that such a country as that into which I had penetrated, from which the very birds of the air shrank away, should continue much further; but whether such really is the case, remains yet to be ascertained.

About three weeks ago a solitary native came to the camp, and remained with us for a week. He was a stranger from the northward and westward, and spoke a different language to the natives hereabouts. What led him to wander to the hills, it is impossible to say ; but it almost appeared as if he had been sent to encourage us. He guessed the use of the boat the moment he saw it, and pointed to the north-west as the quarter in which we should go. He examined the sheep-netting, and putting his head to the meshes, intimated to us by signs that the fish we should find were too large to get through them. He recognized the turtle, the hippocampus, and several sea-fish figured in Cuvier's Plates, naming them respectively ; but he put his fingers on all the others, and gave them a general name. From these facts, his Excellency and the Secretary of State will be enabled to judge of the prospects before us. Putting my observations and these together, I cannot but think we are within one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of some remarkable feature ; but whether a river or a sea, it is impossible to say. On my progress up the Darling, I reduced the allowance of flour from ten to eight pounds a week. In February I red uced it to six pounds, with a corresponding reduction in the other articles of consumption ; and in March I again reduced the flour to five pounds ; below which I should be reluctant to go. These measures have left me with a supply to the present date of twenty-six weeks' provisions ; but as, in the event of our finding any sea or river, that time — twelve weeks of which would necessarily be occupied in our homeward return — would be too limited to enable me to prosecute any important discovery, I have therefore determined on sending a third of my party back to Adelaide, under the charge of Mr. Poole, whose strength has, lam sorry to say, failed him. I should, under isuch circumstances, have adopted this plan, however much I might have felt the loss

of Mr. Poole's services. This reduction in the number of my party will give me an additional supply of provisions for two months, with which I shall have it in my power to advance into the heart of the interior. I trust that Lord Stanley will approve this step : it will only put the Government to the expense of wages for nine men, not including the officers, for the period we may stay out over and above the year. I could not bring myself to abandon the enterprise in so advanced and prosperous a stage ; and I have been influenced both by a sense of duty and an anxious desire to push my investigations to the utmost, in the measures I have adopted. I have already informed you that, about the eiid of January, both my officers and myself were attacked with scurvy. The symptoms did not increase either on me or on Mr. Browne, although they have not abated; but in Mr. Poole's case they became exceedingly aggravated. He became daily worse and worse ; the disease settled in his principal muscles ; his skin turned black, and he at length lost the use of his limbs. He took to his couch on the 26th of April, and has not since risen from it. Both Mr. Browne and myself were at one time much alarmed about him ; but lam happy to say that he has rallied, and that his general health is improving, although his limbs still refuse their office.* I have the honour to be, sir, Your most obedient servant, Charles Stukt. To the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

[* By a subsequent despatch, it appears that Mr. Poole set out on his return to Adelaide on the 13th June, and died suddenly on the following day, of internal haemorrhage. — Ed.]