One Colonist Gave 1000 Pounds; 4000 Pounds More Was Subscribed, And Then The Government Took The Matter In Hand To Fit Out The Victorian Exploring Expedition.

Camels were specially imported from India, and everything was done to ensure success; when I say everything, I mean all but the principal thing - the leader was the wrong man.

He knew nothing of bush life or bushmanship, navigation, or any art of travel. Robert O'Hara Burke was brave, no doubt, but so hopelessly ignorant of what he was undertaking, that it would have been the greatest wonder if he had returned alive to civilisation. He was accompanied by a young man named Wills as surveyor and observer; he alone kept a diary, and from his own statements therein he was frequently more than a hundred miles out of his reckoning. That, however, did not cause his or Burke's death; what really did so was bad management. The money this expedition cost, variously estimated at from 40,000 to 60,000 pounds, was almost thrown away, for the map of the route of the expedition was incorrect and unreliable, and Wills's journal of no geographical value, except that it showed they had no difficulty with regard to water. The expedition was, however, successful in so far that Burke crossed Australia from south to north before Stuart, and was the first traveller who had done so. Burke and Wills both died upon Cooper's Creek after their return from Carpentaria upon the field of their renown. Charles Gray, one of the party, died, or was killed, a day or two before returning thither, and John King, the sole survivor, was rescued by Alfred Howitt. Burke's and Stuart's lines of travel, though both pushing from south to north, were separated by a distance of over 400 miles in longitude. These travellers, or heroes I suppose I ought to call them, were neither explorers nor bushmen, but they were brave and undaunted, and they died in the cause they had undertaken.

When it became certain in Melbourne that some mishap must have occurred to these adventurers, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland each sent out relief parties. South Australia sent John McKinlay, who found Gray's grave, and afterwards made a long exploration to Carpentaria, where, not finding any vessel as he expected, he had an arduous struggle to reach a Queensland cattle station near Port Dennison on the eastern coast. Queensland sent Landsborough by sea to Carpentaria, where he was landed and left to live or die as he might, though of course he had a proper equipment of horses, men, and gear. He followed up the Flinders River of Stokes, had a fine country to traverse; got on to the head of the Warrego, and finally on to the Darling River in New South Wales. He came across no traces whatever of Burke. Victoria sent a relief expedition under Walker, with several Queensland black troopers. Walker, crossing the lower Barcoo, found a tree of Leichhardt's marked L, being the most westerly known. Walker arrived at Carpentaria without seeing any traces of the missing Burke and Wills; but at the mouth of the Albert River met the master of the vessel that had conveyed Landsborough; the master had seen or heard nothing of Burke. Another expedition fitted out by Victoria, and called the Victorian Contingent Relief Expedition, was placed under the command of Alfred Howitt in 1861. At this time a friend of mine, named Conn, and I were out exploring for pastoral runs, and were in retreat upon the Darling, when we met Howitt going out. When farther north I repeatedly urged my companion to visit the Cooper, from which we were then only eighty or ninety miles away, in vain. I urged how we might succour some, if not all, of the wanderers. Had we done so we should have found and rescued King, and we might have been in time to save Burke and Wills also; but Conn would not agree to go. It is true we were nearly starved as it was, and might have been entirely starved had we gone there, but by good fortune we met and shot a stray bullock that had wandered from the Darling, and this happy chance saved our lives. I may here remark that poor Conn and two other exploring comrades of those days, named Curlewis and McCulloch, were all subsequently, not only killed but partly eaten by the wild natives of Australia - Conn in a place near Cooktown on the Queensland coast, and Curlewis and McCulloch on the Paroo River in New South Wales in 1862. When we were together we had many very narrow escapes from death, and I have had several similar experiences since those days. Howitt on his arrival at Cooper's Creek was informed by the natives that a white man was alive with them, and thus John King, the sole survivor, was rescued.

Between 1860-65 several short expeditions were carried on in Western Australia by Frank Gregory, Lefroy, Robinson, and Hunt; while upon the eastern side of Australia, the Brothers Jardine successfully explored and took a mob of cattle through the region that proved so fatal to Kennedy and his companions in 1848. The Jardines traversed a route more westerly than Kennedy's along the eastern shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria to Cape York.

In 1865, Duncan McIntyre, while on the Flinders River of Stokes and near the Gulf of Carpentaria, into which it flows, was shown by a white shepherd at an out sheep station, a tree on which the letter L was cut. This no doubt was one of Landsborough's marks, or if it was really carved by Leichhardt, it was done upon his journey to Port Essington in 1844, when he crossed and encamped upon the Flinders. Mcintyre reported by telegraph to Melbourne that he had found traces of Leichhardt, whereupon Baron von Mueller and a committee of ladies in Melbourne raised a fund of nearly 4000 pounds, and an expedition called "The Ladies' Leichhardt Search Expedition," whose noble object was to trace and find some records or mementoes, if not the persons, and discover the last resting-place of the unfortunate traveller and his companions, was placed under McIntyre's command.

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