Читать книгу Australia Twice Traversed - Ernest Giles - Страница 13

The following year, Alexander Forrest conducted an expedition to the eastwards, from the West Australian settlements; but only succeeded in pushing a few miles beyond Hunt and Lefroy's furthest point in 1864.

What I have written above is an outline of the history of discovery and exploration in Australia when I first took the field in the year 1872; and though it may not perhaps be called, as Tennyson says, one of the fairy tales of science, still it is certainly one of the long results of time. I have conducted five public expeditions and several private ones. The latter will not be recorded in these volumes, not because there were no incidents of interest, but because they were conducted, in connection with other persons, for entirely pastoral objects. Experiences of hunger, thirst, and attacks by hostile natives during those undertakings relieved them of any monotony they might otherwise display. It is, however, to my public expeditions that I shall now confine my narrative.

The wild charm and exciting desire that induce an individual to undertake the arduous tasks that lie before an explorer, and the pleasure and delight of visiting new and totally unknown places, are only whetted by his first attempt, especially when he is constrained to admit that his first attempt had not resulted in his carrying out its objects.

My first and second expeditions were conducted entirely with horses; in all my after journeys I had the services of camels, those wonderful ships of the desert, without whose aid the travels and adventures which are subsequently recorded could not possibly have been achieved, nor should I now be alive, as Byron says, to write so poor a tale, this lowly lay of mine. In my first and second expeditions, the object I had in view was to push across the continent, from different starting points, upon the South Australian Transcontinental Telegraph Line, to the settled districts of Western Australia. My first expedition was fitted out entirely by Baron von Mueller, my brother-in-law, Mr. G.D. Gill, and myself. I was joined in this enterprise by a young gentleman, named Samuel Carmichael, whom I met in Melbourne, and who also contributed his share towards the undertaking. The furthest point reached on this journey was about 300 miles from my starting point. On my return, upon reaching the Charlotte Waters Telegraph Station, in latitude 25° 55´ and longitude 135° I met Colonel Warburton and his son, whom I had known before. These gentlemen informed me, to my great astonishment, they were about to undertake an exploring expedition to Western Australia, for two well-known capitalists of South Australia, namely the Honourable Sir Thomas Elder and Captain Hughes. I was also informed that a South Australian Government expedition, for the same purpose, was just in advance of them, under the command of Mr. William C. Gosse. This information took me greatly by surprise, though perhaps an explorer should not admit such a feeling. I had just returned from an attempt of the same kind, beaten and disappointed. I felt if ever I took the field again, against two such formidable rivals as were now about to attempt what I had failed in, both being supplied with camels by Sir Thomas Elder, my chances of competing with them would be small indeed, as I could only command horses, and was not then known to Sir Thomas Elder, the only gentleman in Australia who possessed camels.

The fact of two expeditions starting away simultaneously, almost as soon as I had turned my back upon civilisation, showed me at once that my attempt, I being regarded as a Victorian, had roused the people and Government of South Australia to the importance of the question which I was the first to endeavour to solve—namely, the exploration of the unknown interior, and the possibility of discovering an overland route for stock through Central Australia, to the settlements upon the western coast. This, I may remark, had been the dream of all Australian explorers from the time of Eyre and Leichhardt down to my own time. It also showed that South Australia had no desire to be beaten again (Burke and Stuart.), and in her own territories, by “worthless Melbourne's pulling child;” (hence the two new expeditions arose. Immediately upon my return being made known by telegram to my friend Baron von Mueller, he set to work, and with unwearied exertion soon obtained a new fund from several wealthy gentlemen in the rival colony of Victoria. In consideration of the information I had afforded by my late effort, the Government of South Australia supplemented this fund by the munificent subsidy of £250, provided I expended the money in fresh explorations, and supplied to the Government, at the termination of my journey, a copy of the map and journal of my expedition. My poverty, and not my will, consented to accept so mean a gift. As a new, though limited fund was now placed at my disposal, I had no inclination to decline a fresh attempt, and thus my second expedition was undertaken; and such despatch was used by Baron Mueller and myself, that I was again in the field, with horses only, not many weeks later than my rivals.

On this journey I was accompanied and seconded by Mr. William Henry Tietkens. We had both been scholars at Christ's Hospital in London, though many years apart. Of the toils and adventures of my second expedition the readers of my book must form their own opinion; and although I was again unsuccessful in carrying out my object, and the expedition ended in the death of one member, and in misfortune and starvation to the others, still I have been told by a few partial friends that it was really a splendid failure. On that expedition I explored a line of nearly 700 miles of previously unknown country, in a straight line from my starting point.

During my first and second expeditions I had been fortunate in the discovery of large areas of mountain country, permanently watered and beautifully grassed, and, as spaces of enormous extent still remained to be explored, I decided to continue in the field, provided I could secure the use of camels. These volumes will contain the narratives of my public explorations. In the preface to this work I have given an outline of the physical and colonial divisions of Australia, so that my reader may eventually follow me, albeit in imagination only, to the starting points of my journeys, and into the field of my labours also.