Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia. Charles Sturt
great rivers. The present expedition will be limited in its object, to ascertaining the existence and the character of a supposed chain of hills, or a succession of separate hills, trending down from N.E. to S.W., and forming a great natural division of the continent; to examining what rivers take their source in those mountains, and what appears to be their course; to the general lie of the country to the N.W. of the supposed chain; and to the character of the soil and forests, as far as can be ascertained by such an investigation as shall not draw the party away from their resources, and shall make the south the constant base of their operations."
I presume, from the tenor of Sir John Barrow's memorandum, that he was not fully aware of the insurmountable difficulties the course he recommends presented. Valuing his judgment as I did on such an occasion, and anxious as I was to act on the suggestions of the Secretary of State, the strongest grounds could alone have made me pursue a course different to that which had been recommended to me. Certainly the fear of any ordinary difficulty would not have influenced me to reject the line pointed out, but I felt satisfied that if Lord Stanley and Sir John Barrow could be made aware of the nature of the country to the north of Mount Arden, and the reasons why I considered it would be more advantageous to take the line of the Darling, they would have concurred in opinion with me. I would myself much rather have taken the line by Mount Arden, since it would have been a greater novelty, and I would have precluded the chance of any collision with the natives of the Darling, more especially at that point to which I proposed to go, and at which Sir Thomas Mitchell had had a rupture with them in 1836. The journeys of Mr. Eyre had, however, proved the impracticability of a direct northerly course from Mount Arden. Such a course would have led me into the horseshoe of Lake Torrens; and although I might have passed to the westward of it, I could hope for no advantage in a country such as that which lies to the north of the Gawler Range. On the other hand, the Surveyor-General of South Australia had attempted a descent into the interior from the eastward, and had encountered great difficulties from the want of water. Local inquiry and experience both went to prove the little likelihood of that indispensable element being found to the north of Spencer's Gulf. It appeared to me also that Sir John Barrow had mistaken the point on the Darling to which I proposed going. It was not, as he seems to have conjectured, to any point to which I had previously been, but to an intermediate one. It is very true that if I had contemplated pushing up the Darling to Fort Bourke, the distance would have been 600 miles, and that, too, in a direction contrary to the one in which I was instructed to proceed; but to Laidley's Ponds, in lat. 32 degrees 26 minutes 0 seconds S. and long. 142 degrees 30 minutes W., (the point to which I proposed to go) the distance would have been a little more than 300 miles. It was from this point that Sir Thomas Mitchell retreated after his rupture with the natives in 1836; because, as he himself informs us, he just then ascertained that a small stream joined the Darling from the westward a little below his camp, and he likewise saw hills in the same direction.
In consequence of the inhospitable character of the country to the north, I had turned my attention to the above locality, and had been assured by the natives, both of the Murray and the Darling, that the Williorara (Laidley's Ponds) was a hill stream, that it came far from the N.W., that it had large fish in it, and that its banks were grassy. It struck me, therefore, that it would be a much more eligible line for the expedition to run up the Darling to lat. 32 degrees 26 minutes, and then to trace the Williorara upwards into the hills, with the chance of meeting the opposite fall of waters, rather than to entangle myself and waste my first energies amidst scrub and salt lagoons. As I understood my instructions and the wishes of the Secretary of State, I was to keep on the 138th meridian (that of Mount Arden) until I should reach the supposed chain of mountains, the existence of which it was the object of Lord Stanley to ascertain, or until I was turned aside from it by some impracticable object. Lake Torrens being due north of Mount Arden would, if I had taken that line, have been direct in my way, and I should have had to turn either its eastern or its western flank. The Surveyor-General, Captain Frome, had tried the former, but although he went considerably to the eastward into the low and desert interior before he turned northwards, he still found himself entangled in that sandy basin, so that it appeared to me that I should do little more than clear it on the course I proposed to take.
As the reader, however, will learn in the perusal of these pages, I was wholly disappointed in the character of the Williorara. Where that channel joins the Darling, the upward course of that river is to the north-east; and as that was a course directly opposite to the one I felt myself bound to take, I abandoned it and took at once to the hills. At my Depot Prison, in lat. 29 degrees 40 minutes, and in long. 141 degrees 30 minutes E., I hoped that we had sufficiently cleared the north-east limit of Lake Torrens; but when on the fall of rain we resumed our labours, we measured 131¾ miles with the chain before we arrived on the shore of a vast sandy basin, which I could not cross, and to the northward of which I could not penetrate. Thus disappointed in my attempt to gain the 138th meridian on a westerly course, as well as in my anticipation of finding Lake Torrens connected with some more central feature, it appeared to me that I could not follow out my instructions better than by attempting to penetrate towards the centre of the continent on a north-west course, for it was clear that if there were any ranges or any mountain chains traversing the interior from north-east to south-west I should undoubtedly strike them; but that if no such chains existed the proposed course would take me to the Tropic on the meridian of 138 degrees, and would enable me to determine the character of the interior, and more central regions of the continent. In this attempt I succeeded in gaining the desired meridian, but failed in reaching the Tropic. My position was about 500 miles north of Mount Arden, 60 miles from the Tropic, and somewhat less than 150 to the eastward of the centre of the Australian continent. Forced back to my depot a second time, from the total failure both of water and grass, in the quarter to which I had penetrated with the above objects in view, having passed the centre in point of latitude, I again left it on a due north course to ascertain if there were any ranges or hills between my position and the Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as to satisfy myself as to the character and extent of a stony desert I had crossed on my last excursion. That iron region however again stopped me in my progress northwards, and obliged me to fall back on a place of safety. For fourteen months I kept my position in a country which never changed but for the worse, and from which it was with difficulty that I ultimately escaped; but as the minuter details of the expedition will be given in the subsequent pages of this work, any mention of them here would be superfluous. I shall only express my regret that we were unable to make the centre or to gain the Tropic. As regards the objects for which the expedition was fitted out, I hope it will be granted that they were accomplished, and that little doubt can now be entertained as to the non-existence of the mountain chains, the supposed existence of which I was sent to ascertain. It would, however, have gratified me exceedingly to have crossed into the Tropic, to have decided my own hypothesis as to the fine country I ventured to predict would be found to exist beyond it. My reasons for supposing which I thought I had explained in my first letter to the Secretary of State, but as it would appear from an observation in Sir John Barrow's memorandum, that I had not done so, I deem it right briefly to record them here.
I had observed on my first expedition to the Darling, in 1828, when in about lat. 29 degrees 30 minutes S. that the migration of the different kinds of birds which visit the country east of the Darling during the summer, was invariably to the W. N. W. Cockatoos and parrots that whilst staying in the colony were known to frequent elevated land, and to select the richest and best watered valleys for their temporary location, passed in flights of countless number to the above-mentioned point. I had also observed, during my residence in South Australia, that several of the same kind of birds annually visited it, and that they came directly from the north. I had seen the PSYTACUS NOVAE HOLLANDIAE and the SHELL PARROQUET following the line of the shore of St. Vincent Gulf like flights of starlings in England, and although intervals of more than a quarter of an hour elapsed between the passing of one flight and that of another, they all came from the north and followed in the same direction. Now, although I am quite ready to admit that the casual appearance of a few strange birds should not influence the judgment, yet I think that a reasonable inference may be drawn from the regular and systematie migration of the feathered races. Now, if we were to draw a line from Fort Bourke to the W. N. W., and from Mount Arden to the north, we should find that they would meet a little to the northward of the Tropic, and as I felt assured of two lines of migration thus tending to the same point, there could be