Australia Twice Traversed | Page 9

of the Cooper;
this creek, which has a very lengthy course, ends in Lake Eyre, one of
the salt depressions which baffled that explorer. A point on the

southern shore is now known as Eyre's Lookout.
The Cooper is known in times of flood to reach a width of between
forty and fifty miles, the whole valley being inundated. Floods may
surround a traveller while not a drop of local rain may fall, and had the
members of this expedition perished in any other way, some remains of
iron pack-saddle frames, horns, bones, skulls, firearms, and other
articles must have been found by the native inhabitants who occupied
the region, and would long ago have been pointed out by the aborigines
to the next comers who invaded their territories. The length of time that
animals' bones might remain intact in the open air in Australia is
exemplified by the fact that in 1870, John Forrest found the skull of a
horse in one of Eyre's camps on the cliffs of the south coast thirty years
after it was left there by Eyre. Forrest carried the skull to Adelaide. I
argue, therefore, that if Leichhardt's animals and equipment had not
been buried by a flood, some remains must have been since found, for
it is impossible, if such things were above ground that they could
escape the lynx-like glances of Australian aboriginals, whose
wonderful visual powers are unsurpassed among mankind. Everybody
and everything must have been swallowed in a cataclysm and buried
deep and sure in the mud and slime of a flood.
The New South Wales Government made praiseworthy efforts to
rescue the missing traveller. About a year after Leichhardt visited Port
Essington, the Government abandoned the settlement, and the
prevailing opinion in the colony of New South Wales at that time was,
that Leichhardt had not been able to reach Eyre's Creek, but had been
forced up north, from his intended route, the inland-sea theory still
prevailing, and that he had probably returned to the old settlement for
relief. Therefore, when he had been absent two years, the Government
despatched a schooner to the abandoned place. The master of the vessel
saw several of the half-civilised natives, who well remembered
Leichhardt's arrival there, but he had not returned. The natives
promised the master to take the greatest care of him should he again
appear, but it is needless to say he was seen no more. The Government
were very solicitous about him, and when he had been absent four years,
Mr. Hovendon Heley was sent away with an outfit of pack-horses and
six or seven men, to endeavour to trace him. This expedition seems to
have wandered about for several months, and discovered, as Mr. Heley

states, two marked trees branded exactly alike, namely L over XVA,
and each spot where these existed is minutely described. There was at
each, a water-hole, upon the bank of which the camp was situated; at
each camp a marked tree was found branded alike; at each, the frame of
a tent was left standing; at each, some logs had been laid down to place
the stores and keep them from damp. The two places as described
appear so identical that it seems impossible to think otherwise than that
Heley and his party arrived twice at the same place without knowing it.
The tree or trees were found on a watercourse, or courses, near the head
of the Warrego River, in Queensland. The above was all the
information gained by this expedition. A subsequent search expedition
was sent out in 1858, under Augustus Gregory; this I shall place in its
chronological order. Kennedy, a companion of Sir Thomas Mitchell
into Tropical Australia in 1845, next enters the field. He went to trace
Mitchell's Victoria River or Barcoo, but finding it turned southwards
and broke into many channels, he abandoned it, and on his return
journey discovered the Warrego River, which may be termed the
Murrumbidgee of Queensland. On a second expedition, in 1848,
Kennedy started from Moreton Bay to penetrate and explore the
country of the long peninsula, which runs up northward between the
Gulf of Carpentaria and the Pacific Ocean, and ends at Cape York, the
northernmost point of Australia in Torres Straits. From this disastrous
expedition he never returned. He was starved, ill, fatigued, hunted by
remorseless aborigines for days, and finally speared to death by the
natives of Cape York, when almost within sight of his goal, where a
vessel was waiting to succour him and all his party. Only a black boy
named Jacky Jacky was with him. After Kennedy's death Jacky buried
all his papers in a hollow tree, and for a couple of days he eluded his
pursuers, until, reaching the spot where his master had told him the