CHAPTER XX.

Nationality of the first finders of Australia--Knowledge of the Malays--The bamboo introduced--Traces of smallpox amongst the natives in the north-west--Tribal rites--Antipathy to pork--Evidence of admixture in origin--Influence of Asiatic civilisation partly visible--Coast appearance repelling--Want of indigenous food plants--Lack of intercourse with other nations--Little now left of unexplored country--Conclusions respecting various geological formations--Extent of continental divisions--Development of coastal towns--Inducements for population--Necessity of the first explorings--Pioneer squatters'

efforts--First Australian-born explorer--Desert theory exploded--Fertile downs everywhere--Want of water apparently insurmountable--Heroism of explorers--Inexperience of the early settlers--Grazing possible--Rapid stocking of country--The barrenness of the "Great Bight"--Sturt, the PENN of Australia--Results--Mitch.e.l.l's work--Baron von Mueller's researches--A salt lake--Stuart first man across the continent--Burke and Wills'

heroism--Services of McKinlay and Landsborough--John Forrest's journeys--Camel expedition by Giles--The BRISBANE COURIER expedition--Further explorations--Stockdale at Cambridge Gulf--Carr-Boyd and O'Donnell open good country in Western Australia--Work done by explorers--Their characteristics--Conclusion.

By common consent the nationality of the first navigators who landed on our sh.o.r.es is awarded to the Spanish. Following them came the Dutch, and, finally, the French and English. And, although the record of the Spanish visit to our northern coast is but vague, the fact of their being the first to acquaint the Western nations with the undoubted existence of a far southern land is generally allowed. Amongst the people inhabiting the many islands of the Malay Archipelago and portions of the mainland of Asia, there can be little doubt that our continent was known, and intercourse of an occasional kind carried on with its natives. That no permanent settlement was ever formed, or probably attempted, we may ascribe to the unpromising nature of the soil, compared to the fertile islands left by the visitors, and the fact that the products of which they came in search were mostly found in the sea itself, the sh.o.r.e only being at times visited for obtaining fresh water or seeking shelter.

During these visits no inducements would be forthcoming for undertaking an excursion inland. The monotonous character of the country would not excite curiosity, and the absence of all temptation in the way of articles of barter and traffic likely to be found, would confine their investigations chiefly to the sea sh.o.r.e. A temporary camp for drying the sea-slugs of commerce, a refuge for their crafts when the sudden storms of the tropics broke loose, met all their requirements. It is to the Malay ancestors of the men whose proas are still to be found fishing among the outlying reefs of the north, that we must look for the first discoverers of our island continent, and failing all written record or existing monument of their doings, search amongst the natives themselves for confirmation of the fact.

The presence of the bamboo in Arnheim's Land only, and its indigenous nature, is strong evidence of its Malay origin. It is found in abundance over this large promontory, and on the banks of the different rivers and creeks. Its extensive spread and thick growth point to many centuries of introduction, and that the Australians first obtained it from their northern visitors is almost certain. In abandoned camps pieces of bamboo would be left sticking in the ground, and formed, as most of their camps are, on the sandy banks of a creek, their growth would be under favourable circ.u.mstances, and their spread down the watercourses rapid.

Amongst all the tribes whose hunting grounds are between Cape Arnheim, and Cambridge Gulf, the traces of small-pox can be seen unmistakeably on many of the old men. Some are blind, and deeply pitted, others but lightly marked. Apparently the disease has worn itself out, for only the oldest members of the tribes have suffered. None seem to have it now, nor are the marks of the disease to be seen on the middle-aged men. The ravages of this scourge must have been confined to the coast tribes, as no evidence of its having been amongst the natives of the interior is to be found. The belt of dry country separating the aborigines of the plain from those of the sea may have saved the former, as this belt is often left uncrossed for years. This disease must have been brought from the north, and the date of its introduction would probably lie many centuries back.

Many of their customs and tribal rites bear a close resemblance to some that may be found in the New Testament, and are foreign to the usual habits of the Australian blackfellow. Add to this an innate antipathy to the flesh of swine when tasted for the first time, and it seems evident that some of the laws and traditions of more civilised nations have drifted down and been partly appropriated by the Australians.

In many of the sea-coast blacks of the north, sleepy eyes and straight-cut noses are often prominent, and render some of them especially remarkable; these features giving their faces an entirely different aspect to the common blackfellow type adjoining them inland.

That, in the event of the wreck of a proa on the coast, some intermixture of the races would take place, and the survivors, perhaps, pa.s.s the remainder of their lives amongst the blacks, is quite possible, seeing that to many of our countrymen it has happened.

The close acquaintanceship shown by the Malay beche-de-mer fishers with the nooks and inlets that are so thickly strewn along the coast, west of Cape Wessell, appears to be the result of much old-world seafaring lore, handed down from father to son. Whether the Chinese ever ventured so far south as Australia cannot be affirmed with certainty. Accident may have led them to our sh.o.r.es, but it is scarcely probable that the love of adventure would have tempted them so far.

Taking, then, the exceptional customs common to the natives of that portion 'of Australia still visited by the Malays, and seeing that these customs would only be the outcome of some centuries of intercourse, it is reasonable to suppose that from these outposts of Asiatic civilisation came the first adventurous traders to the lone land of the south. The distinct type of the Australian, while showing in exceptional cases the signs of foreign blood, precludes the idea that the continent was peopled from the north; but, at the same time, it is evident that some rudimentary forms of a higher development drifted down in after ages from that source.

The effect that the repellant nature of the Australian coast has had upon the southern progress of semi-civilisation is remarkably distinct. Each successive wave of improvement from the Asiatic continent seems to grow weaker and weaker as it travels south, until it breaks hopelessly on Australia. Nor is it hard to find the reason. The savage, coming from islands where a rude cultivation of indigenous fruits, valuable in their nature, had induced primitive land laws, and consequently settled habitations and a defined code of laws concerning tribal rights and boundaries, found himself amongst a nomadic race, trusting to hunting and fishing solely for the means of existence. The soil, formed of the denudation of the sandstone rocks, scantily fertilised here and there by the decaying jungle, presented no field for rude agriculture, even had the dry seasons permitted; and gave forth no native fruits, save tasteless berries and half-poisonous roots. No knowledge of minerals would tempt him into the semi-scorched ranges inland; he would simply see that life after the old fashion of village existence was no longer for him, and would become a hunter and fisher like his fellows.

It would have been of inestimable benefit to the Australians, had tribes from the northern countries, only slightly higher than themselves in the scale, established a permanent footing on the mainland, and gradually worked their way throughout the land, carrying their superior knowledge with them, and having in the extended area before them a wide field for future development. Intermixing socially with the aborigines, they would have in a few generations made an indelible mark upon their mental capacity, which, after all, is only dormant; and the march of improvement once set in motion, centuries of confirmed intercourse with races of greater culture, and the consequent spread of new ideas would have peopled our continent with a different race to the improvident native of the present.

But the force of nature was against it; the new land of the south held forth no inducements even for the pirate or marauder. In the hand to mouth struggle for existence, not even a supply of food would be found in a ransacked camp; no land seen tempting settlement by its luxuriant vegetation and produce. The visitors of the straits scorned the inhospitable coast, and returned north. Only those whom ill-fate had deprived of the means of return stayed perforce, and lost their ident.i.ty amongst the aborigines.

The white man, when he came, looked upon the country as he would upon an uninhabited land; the native was too far beneath him to profit by his coming, no inter-mixture of races could take place, the difference was too widely marked; and the aborigines of Australia were from the first numbered amongst the doomed tribes of the earth. An earlier introduction of the spirit of progress, however meagre in form, might have saved them.

Had our northern coasts but possessed some lure for Asiatic nations, the story would have travelled and brought their overflowing population down to settle the continent long before the advent of our countrymen.

It is an accepted fact that on the continent of Australia proper there is very little unexplored territory left, and that we pretty well know what resources, in the way of land, we have still to fall back upon. This acceptance of our knowledge of the unsettled regions of our country is both right and wrong. Right, inasmuch that in a general sense, arguing from our knowledge of climatic influences in different lat.i.tudes, we can infer the particular nature of a particular district, although untrodden as yet by any one capable of giving us information. Wrong, in that the geographical formations of Australia are so persistently antagonistic that no true nor reliable deduction can always be arrived at. When I say persistently antagonistic, I mean that the two formations common to the interior, namely, sandstone and limestone, produce either a desert or a rich prairie. As a rule, in the vast interior, still unvisited and unsettled, the conditions are that the soil either grows gra.s.ses and herbs of the most nutritive character, or such as are totally unfitted to support graminivorous animal life. And these two conditions we may call antagonistic, as far as our efforts at practical settlement are concerned. When the outcrop is limestone, we may reckon on good pastoral country, and a fair water supply. When the outcrop is the pure red sandstone, we can hope for little else but the desert spinifex.

The distinction between these two formations is so strongly marked that it almost seems that a hard and fast line had, in places, been drawn between the productive and unproductive portions of Australia. That these strange and sudden alterations occur right through the continent, we have the evidence in the diaries of Giles and Forrest; and although we cannot doubt that a great portion of unexplored Australia consists of country that will never support population, we have as yet no valid reason for condemning the whole.

The continent of Australia contains, roughly speaking, three millions of square miles less about thirty-five thousand square miles. It may be summarised as follows: that New South Wales contains no unexplored country; Victoria, none; Queensland, a small portion of Cape York Peninsula; South Australia, a considerable area; and Western Australia, a very great deal. All the important explorations of late years have been in the last two mentioned colonies, for the very reason that in these colonies only the unknown exists. South Australia has at least 300,000 square miles of unexplored and partly explored country, and Western Australia can claim more than half a million of miles just touched here and there by the tracks of Eyre, Gregory, Giles, Forrest, and Warburton.

In speculating upon the future capabilities of this great expanse, we must fairly weigh the testimony of these men, and, by comparison, see what chance we have in the future of finding fresh pasture lands for the next generation. On the whole the testimony is unfavourable, but, on close inspection, there are strange coincidences in their diaries which would lead one to think that, perhaps, after all the "hopeless desert"

that witnessed both their struggles and successes may yet hold secrets worth knowing and worth seeking for. In our time we have seen how the desert theory has been exploded in New South Wales--forced, as it were, outside our boundaries by the mere expansion of settlement. It is but a question of time for the mysteries of the yet unknown interior to share the same fate, and in the solution of the unknown great possibilities exist.

The development of the towns along the northern sea-board must necessarily be rapid. From the sheep-growing downs of the inland plateau, to the sugar and coffee-growing flats of the coast, the exports will be ever on the increase, and the wants of a growing people will necessitate ports in places that are now uninhabited. That the north will become one of the richest portions of our continent there is no doubt; its immense mineral wealth stands but partially revealed, while its adaptability for settlement is practically unbounded. The progress and utilisation of the waste lands of the north will be an interesting experiment to watch.

Nature has, to a great extent, indicated the laws of settlement that will dominate the territory. To the capitalist she has given the rich wool-growing slopes of the inland country, where the expenditure of money is necessary, in order that the full value may be reaped from the land leased; money expended in water-storage, that repays the owner in a hundred ways. To the man of humbler means the well-watered coast districts offer facilities for small cattle stations and selections, and on the banks of some of the rivers the planter will soon be making a home, whilst for the miners are the broken ranges and gullies of the Dividing Range.

A settled Australia--that is, comparatively settled-this century may not witness, but that it will be a fact of the future, few, who have lived in the colonies during the last two decades, can doubt.

We may look forward to the crowning work of the future, when we shall no longer be altogether dependent upon the caprices of climate; nor sit idly by whilst our heritage of rainfall rushes past us into the ocean.

From the arrival of Governor Phillip with the first fleet, 1789, to the year 1813, when Wentworth, Lawson, and Blaxland succeeded in crossing the main range--the Blue Mountains--all attempts at exploration into the interior had been limited, the main range proving an impenetrable barrier. For the wants of the colony, the country up to that time found had proved sufficient. In the neighbourhood of Sydney, the Nepean, Grose, and Hawkesbury; to the north, the River Hunter; and to the south, the district known now as the Illawarra. But combined with the severe drought of 18 13, and the increase of stock, it was necessary to seek pastures new.

Their hopes of finding a navigable river flowing west into the sea were never realised, although for years it was each explorer's dream. On following a stream, they invariably found it run out into a shallow swamp, and then thought the continent possessed an inland sea or lake.

Oxley p.r.o.nounced this portion desert, and to them it then was; no thought could enter their minds of how after years of stocking, the entire country would change; how time and labour alone could make that vast waste profitable.

Directly the pa.s.s of the Blue Mountains had been won, and a public road made across the range, settlers with their stock steadily flowed west; the township of Bathurst sprang up, and settlement was made south towards the Shoalhaven River. The first large expedition into the interior was undertaken by Oxley, and he again comes to the conclusion that "the interior westward of a certain meridian is uninhabitable, deprived, as it is, of wood, water, and gra.s.s ... that the interior of this vast country is a marsh, and uninhabitable." Only the edge of the interior crossed, it was early to come to this conclusion. But we must remember that the party were weary and disgusted with their want of success-the barren country, with no variety of trees, or soil; everything always the same. Eventually they reached good, well-watered country, and turning back from the Macquarie, delighted with the river, believed that the high road to the interior had been found.

This trip successful, he again left to follow the Macquarie, and although the inland sea remained undiscovered, large tracts of fertile country were opened for settlement; moreover, he had crossed the coast range to the north, and discovered that Port Macquarie (which, on following down the River Hastings, he had found and named) proved a practicable route to the interior.

About this time the pioneer squatter took share with the explorer, and settlement quickly advanced. Lawson and Scott were disappointed in their attempt to reach Oxley's discovery of Liverpool Plains; unable to penetrate the southern boundary of the plains, they discovered the Goulburn River. The year 1823 found Oxley, Cunningham, and Currie, all out in different directions; Currie to the south of Lake George, Cunningham engaged north of Bathurst, first in his capacity of botanist, and the discovery of a pa.s.s through the northern range on Liverpool Plains, which Lawson and Scott had sought in vain. He found and named the Pandora Pa.s.s, it proving practicable as a stock route.

Oxley then left Sydney in the MERMAID, to examine the inlets of Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, with a view to forming a penal settlement there. It was on this trip, while at Moreton Bay, that they rescued from the blacks the two men Pamphlet and Finnigan, who had been wrecked at Moreton Island seven months before. Oxley named the Brisbane River. This was his last work, and he died near Sydney in 1828. His career as an explorer was very successful. He had done much to aid the new colony, but was ever disappointed in his hopes of reaching the inland sea or lake, and of proving, except to his own satisfaction, whether any large rivers entered the sea between Cape Otway and Spencer's Gulf. Then Sir Thomas Brisbane thought of landing a party of prisoners near Wilson's Promontory, and by offer of a free pardon and a land grant, to find their way back to Sydney.

Mr. Hume, the first Australian-born explorer, and Mr. Hovell, took a party from Lake George, at that time the most outside station, to Western Port, and they were the first to see the Australian Alps. This trip helped to prove the hasty condemnation of Oxley's "desert" theory, and besides giving to the colony millions of acres of well-watered fertile country, and adding another large and important river--the Murray--it also held out far higher hopes for the future of the interior. During this time a settlement was formed at Moreton Bay, and subsequently removed to a better site on the Brisbane River. Cunningham, in 1827, left on a trip destined materially to effect the immediate progress of this new colony. Crossing Oxley's track, and entering the unexplored region, after naming the Gwydir and Dumaresque Rivers, he finally emerged on the Darling Downs. He was in raptures at the inexhaustible range of cattle pasture, the permanent water, and the gra.s.s and herbage generally. Then a pa.s.sage across the range to Moreton Bay was found by way of Cunningham's Gap, but it was not used until the next year, when, accompanied by Mr.

Frazer, colonial botanist, they proceeded by sea to Moreton Bay, and connected the settlement with the Darling Downs. How easy was the main range crossed here, and the fertile downs laid open, compared to the years of labour spent on the pa.s.s of the Blue Mountains. In the year following Cunningham made his last expedition, closing ten years of unceasing work in the cause of exploration.

Sturt followed Oxley's tracks. He exposed some of Oxley's mistakes, but only to make others as great; for the land was smitten with drought, and the rivers that Oxley had followed were now mere creeks, and in pa.s.sing judgment no allowance was made for the seasons, and the country was valued according to the standard of other countries. His descriptions of the interior are wonderful pictures of the desolate, waterless, abandoned desert, "I scorched beneath a lurid sun of burning fire." His mission was to ascertain what lay beyond the shallow bed of reeds to the westward, in which Oxley lost the Macquarie; but as suddenly and as mysteriously the river ran out, and they were as completely baffled as Oxley had been. Dry on all sides, nothing was found but stony ridges or open forest, the country was monotonously level, and no sign of a river. Creek after creek they followed, only to lose it in a marsh. Suddenly they found themselves on the banks of a n.o.ble river, and from its size and saltness, Sturt conjectured he was near its confluence with an inland sea; but to be convinced in a few more days that the saltness was of local origin, fed by saline springs. This river Sturt called the Darling. The homeward march began, and the same hara.s.sing hunt for water; no break in the country, or change in the vegetation; all brown, blank, and desolate; not even inhabited by a bird-the drought had so long continued. Sturt had found the Darling, and he it was who eventually traced its course and outlet. Starting for that purpose the next year, they sailed down the Murray, proving its confluence with the Darling, and on down the united streams of the Murray and Darling with boundless flats on each side. The river widened day by day; the flight of sea-gulls, and the chopping sea caused by the wind, surely showed they were near the ocean. Still, Sturt had reached his goal--the Murray ended in a lake. They had hoped that succour would have waited them, had the ocean been reached. Now they must re-enter the Murray while the weary party had still strength to face each day's never-ending toil, and return to the camp on the Murrumbidgee. The great satisfaction of having successfully followed the course of the Murray was damped by the apparently valueless nature of the country pa.s.sed through. And this trip, while adding greatly to Australian geography, gave a proof of the most patient endurance and courage--even to heroism--not excelled in the many records of bravery and dangers undergone by other explorers.

We have now looked through the reports of the country given by many men, and become familiar with their opinions of the future of the interior; they are almost unanimous in p.r.o.nouncing it barren and uninhabitable. We must remember it was not their want of ability, but their inexperience of the value of the native gra.s.ses and herbs. In comparison with other countries, they appeared worthless. They did not realize that stocking would force the waters into natural channels, and that the stock would bring fresh gra.s.ses in their train, getting accustomed to and, after a while, fattening on the despised bushes and herbs. To them it was the embodiment of a desert--irreclaimable.

During the time these explorations were in progress, a settlement had been formed in Western Australia, and some attempt at exploration made, but for a few years not to any great distance. No difficulties here presented themselves to a pa.s.sage through the coast range, and the country discovered seemed fitted both for pasture and agriculture.

For many years little was done in the way of fresh expeditions, until the year 1831. Major Mitch.e.l.l in charge of a party traced the rivers, discovered by Oxley and Cunningham; his explorations were also surveys and the river system of the continent was partially worked out, but the hope of a river running through the interior to the north-west coast bad to be finally abandoned. His report of the country was also more favourable, and his after expeditions, merely connecting surveys, confirming and verifying previous discoveries, rather than an exploration into the unknown. His reports were glowing of the country pa.s.sed through generally; from snow-topped mountains to level plains, watered with permanent streams and rivers, fitted for immediate occupation of the grazier or farmer.

Now it may be said the difficulties were overcome of entering the interior, for it was a.s.sailed from three points; Perth on the west, Port Phillip and St. Vincent's Gulf on the south, and from the settled parts of New South Wales and Moreton Bay on the east. Henceforth the settler so promptly followed the explorer, that the country became settled and stocked almost as quickly as known, and, foot by foot, the desert driven back.

Grey and Lushington wishing to verify the existence or not of a large river supposed to empty itself into the sea, at Dampier's Archipelago, endured great hardships. They were without experience of the colonies, or of the capabilities of the country; but as far as they could judge, p.r.o.nounced the country well gra.s.sed and timbered. Their second trip resulted in the discovery of the Gascoigne, but little else; no great results to compensate for their terrible suffering and privation.

Small explorations were rapidly carried on to provide for the number of stock imported and the best stock routes; and now it was time to turn north, to look for the inland sea and the chain of mountains--Australia's backbone--that was supposed to exist. E. J. Eyre's discovery of Lake Torrens turned the colonists' attention north as a practicable stock route to Western Australia. From the sterile nature of the coast of the bight, and the absence of any rivers emptying into the sea, it was useless to seek in that direction. His march round the Great Bight was a journey of terrible suffering; it certainly proved that no water flowed into the south coast, and gave us our knowledge of the barren country shut in by the impenetrable, monotonous cliff line that closed its secrets against our mariners, but it gave no knowledge of the interior.

After some of his men had deserted, and the one that remained murdered, Eyre, alone, on foot, with his stubborn courage, wearied out and starving, followed the coast line for numberless miles. Any errors of judgment leading to the tragic end of his expedition must needs be overlooked in the face of the great dangers and the perseverance that carried him through.

Sturt has been called the father of Australian exploration, and may well be held as one of our greatest scientific explorers--his object always to solve the mystery of the great interior; its strange peculiarity and physical formation. He returned disappointed, baffled. But was he in reality beaten? He was exceptionally unlucky in his seasons, and the report of the land he brought back caused settlement to progress slowly; only after years, when men had grown accustomed to the terrors of the desert, and knew that experience robbed them of their effect, Sturt found, but unwittingly, the outflow of the second river system. He longed to be the first to reach the centre of Australia, and hoped that once past the southern zone of the tropics he would reach a country blessed with a heavy and constant rainfall. Always he looked back with pleasure upon his travels, and said: "My path amongst savage tribes has been a bloodless one."

Next among our explorers comes Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt, and his trip from Fort Burke, on the Darling, to the Gulf of Carpentaria, which opened up so much well-watered country and attracted universal attention; but, unlike Sturt, he had exceptional good fortune, travelling always through country easy to penetrate and well watered--not one night had the party to camp without water.

During this expedition, Sir Thomas Mitch.e.l.l started with one having almost the same end in view as Dr. Leichhardt's. He did not reach the Gulf, but threw open our wonderful western prairies, and found the upper tributaries of the second great river system. This was his last expedition, and it fully confirmed his reputation. More fortunate than Sturt, he had been favoured in having plentiful and bountiful seasons of water and vegetation; but both men had done wonders in the cause of exploration. Mitch.e.l.l's discovery of the Victoria, along the banks of which river he felt the high road to the north coast was found, was continued by Kennedy, who had been second in command during the first expedition of Sir Thomas Mitch.e.l.l.

With a lightly equipped party Kennedy started to follow the course of the Victoria. Finally the river led them into the desert described by Sturt: "Plains gaping with fissures, gra.s.sless and waterless," and he turned back satisfied that the Victoria had not its outflow in the Gulf of Carpentaria, as hoped for by Sir Thomas Mitch.e.l.l, but lost itself in Cooper's Creek. The loss of flour, through the natives, prevented Kennedy from extending his explorations towards the Gulf.

Kennedy's second trip, to examine Cape York Peninsula, ended most disastrously. Out of his party of thirteen only two men and a black boy were rescued. Through marshes and scrubs--seemingly the one monotonous entry in their journal being, "Cutting scrub all day"--they endeavoured to push their way to Port Albany, the extreme north of the Peninsula, where a ship would meet them. Salt.w.a.ter creeks and marshy ground, with the ranges inhabited by hostile natives, was their prospect, while their horses were rapidly failing on the sour coast gra.s.ses. From first to last this was a most unfortunate expedition-the awful and impa.s.sable nature of the country travelled through, the hostile blacks and loss of the horses, and then, when sickness came upon the little band, it was doomed.

In the south, Baron von Mueller was busy exploring some of the unknown portion of South Australia and the Australian Alps-botanical and geographical researches combined. The heights of several of the highest mountains in Australia were fixed, and geographical positions accurately placed.

Leichhardt, encouraged by his successes, makes his final venture, but what befel his party--shall we ever know? It is so late now that we can entertain little hope of ever elucidating his fate.

In 1846, the Gregory brothers are in the west, led by A. C. Gregory, who so distinguished himself afterwards as a scientific explorer, and in 1855 he was in command of the North Australian Expedition; with him his brother and the celebrated botanist Baron Von Mueller. Captain Stokes reported the Victoria as an important stream, and the probable means of gaining access to the interior, upon which Gregory traced its course. He professed great disappointment at the reality of Captain Stokes' "Plains of Promise," compared to what he had been led to expect. The successful conclusion of this expedition, which had covered nearly five thousand miles, proves Gregory an explorer of undoubted qualifications, and it is to he regretted that so scanty a record of his travels has been published.