How Hotly Debated This "Cement Question" Has Been May Be Judged From The
Fact That, At The Time Of Writing, Riots Are Reported From Kalgoorlie,
During Which The Premier Was Hooted And Stoned.
This cowardly act could
hardly be the work of genuine diggers, and could doubtless be traced to
the army of blackguards and riffraff who have, of late years, found their
way to the goldfields.
It would be idle to discuss here the questions of "who is right" and
"who is wrong." A great deal can be said on both sides. Let us hope the
controversy will be settled to the satisfaction of both parties; that the
diggers will not be turned off what is justly theirs, to benefit
leaseholding companies, nor leaseholders deprived of their rights.
PART V THE OUTWARD JOURNEY
CHAPTER I
PREVIOUS EXPLORERS IN THE INTERIOR OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
I had not been enjoying the comforts of civilised life for long before I
had a letter from Dave Wilson telling me how he and our mates had pegged
out, and applied for, a lease which gave every promise of doing well.
In April, 1896, I returned to Australia, and made speed to our new
property, which I found to be in every respect as satisfactory as Wilson
had told me. To be in the possession of a good mine, and to find someone
anxious to change places on terms mutually agreeable, are two very
different things. We were fortunate, however, in finding a purchaser, but
not fortunate enough to bring him up to the scratch with any promptitude.
I had hoped to have had all preparations for the projected expedition
complete by the beginning of May, in order that by the time the hot
weather came on we should be well on our way, if not at the end of our
journey. The Fates ordered things differently, and it was not until the
middle of June that I was free to turn my attention to the thousand and
one details connected with the composition and equipment of my party.
With what keenness I entered into the preparations may be well imagined,
for now at last I was in a position to undertake the expedition I had so
long in my mind. In order to explain what my object was, and what my plan
of procedure was to be, it will be necessary to give a short sketch of the
history of exploration and advance of settlement in Western Australia.
The Colony, occupying one third of the continent, has an extreme length of
1,500 miles and a breadth of one thousand miles. The length of coast-line
exceeds three thousand miles. A most noticeable feature of the coast-line
on the South is the entire absence of rivers - for nearly seven hundred
miles no rivers or even watercourses are met with. Along the Western coast
rivers are fairly frequent, the largest being the Swan, Murchison,
Gascoyne, Ashburton, the Fortescue, and De Grey. The Swan, on which the
capital is situated, is the most important - the rivers North of this are
not always running, the seasons in the country where they rise being very
unreliable. Further North again, where Warburton's Desert abuts on the
sea, we find an inhospitable sandy beach (the Eighty-mile Beach), along
which no river mouths are seen. In the far North, the Kimberley Division,
the coast-line is considerably indented by bays, gulfs, and the mouths of
rivers of fair size, which run for the greater part of the year; of these
the most important are the Fitzroy, Lennard, Prince Regent, and Ord. The
Colony can boast of no great mountain ranges, the highest, the Darling
Range, being something over 2,000 feet. The Leopold range in the north is
of about the same altitude. No mountain chain breaks the monotony of the
central portions of the Colony. In the interior hills are called
mountains, and a line of hills, ranges, for want of a better name.
The first settlement was formed on the Swan River in 1826, and gradually
spread to the South and North, until to-day we find the occupied portion
of the Colony extending along the western seaboard for about 1,200 miles,
with an average breadth of perhaps two hundred miles. In the North the
occupied country is confined to the watersheds of the two main rivers,
the Fitzroy and the Ord.
To the Eastward of Perth the populous mining towns and many scattered
mining camps and settlements extend some five hundred miles towards the
interior. In spite of the discovery of gold and the advance of the Colony
in every way, there still remains more than half the province unoccupied.
How scattered the population of the settled country is may be judged from
the fact that the average population is one individual to every six square
miles. The vast, almost unknown, interior well merits its designation of
"Desert," and I suppose that in few parts of the world have travellers
had greater difficulties to overcome than in the arid, sun-dried
wilderness of interior Australia. The many attempts to penetrate beyond
the head-waters of the coastal rivers date from the earliest days of the
Swan River Settlement. But in every case travellers, bold and enduring,
were forced back by the impassable nature of the sandy deserts - impassable
to all except camels. Roe, Hunt, Austin, and the Gregorys made more than
one effort to solve the mysteries of the interior. Numerous attempts were
made to cross the Colony from West to East or VICE VERSA, with the double
object of ascertaining whether the nature of the country rendered it
suitable for settlement, and of establishing some means of communication
with the sister colonies to the East.
The first who succeeded in travelling overland from South to West
Australia was Eyre, afterwards made governor of Jamaica. He started in
1841, and his route hugged the coast-line along the shores of the Great
Australian Bight, and is now closely followed by the telegraph line.
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