The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-14 00:00:00

[THE AUSTRALIAN EXPLORING EX-
PBDITION.

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)
The exploring expedition which left Melbourne
in August, 1860, under Mr. Robert O'Hara Burke
has come to an untimely and disastrous end. After
succeeding in crossing this island, or continent as it
may be well called, and reaching the tide waters
of the Albert river, which flows into the Gulf of
Carpentaria, and returning► to their depot at
Cooper's Creek, Burke and Wills, two out of the
three survivors, perished miserably from exhaustion
and starvation, where, by better management, they
ought to have been saved. I have transmitted by
this mail a copy of the scanty journals that have
been published, and I proceed to give a brief his-
tory of this expedition.

In 1859 an advertisement appeared in the papers
from a gentleman who withheld, and still withholds,
his name, that he would contribute £l,OOO towards
the expenses of an expedition to explore the centre
of Australia, provided the public would contribute
an equal sum. 1 believe the gentleman's name, as
a guarantee for goodfaith, was communicated to Sir
William Stowell, the Chief Justice, who was then
President of the Royal Society. About this time
the propriety of introducing camels from India had
been urged upon the assembly by a member named
Embling. The then Government favoured the
scheme, and a sum of £3,000 was placed on the esti-
mates and voted for the purpose. The subscriptions
amounted to more than the prescribed sum, and the
Committee of the Royal Society consisting of 18 mem-
bers, to whom the management of the expedition was
assigned, found themselves possessed of £2,500 for
the purposes of the expedition. The camels, 27 in
number, arrived in good health with native drivers.
Sir William Stowell acted as president of the ex-
ploration committee.

There was a great deal of discussion in the first
instance as to the point of departure. A majority
of the committee were in favour of sending the ex-
pedition by sea to Blunder Bay, on the north coast,
and making that point the commencement of its
labours, but then the camels could not have been
used, and the plan was afterwards changed to the
establishment of a depot at Cooper's Creek, from
which the expedition should start and on which
it could fall back. This plan must not be judged
of by the subsequent disaster. In spite of the
result, the plan was a wise one, and it is not diffi-
cult to trace to the imperfect manner in which it
was carried out the cause of its failure. Cooper's
Creek was discovered by the explorer Sturt. He
struck it in 27 deg. 44 min. south, and 140 deg.
22 min. east, and he traced it to 27 deg, 5G min.
south and 140 deg. east. It will easily be found in
the modern maps.

The expedition left Melbourne on the 20th of
August, 1860, under the command of Burke, with
Mr. George Landells second in command, and in
charge of the camels which he had successfully
brought from India ; W. J. Wills, surveyor and
astronomer; Herman Beckler, surgeon and geolo-
gist; Ludwig Becker, a very clever artist, naturalist,
and geologist and ten men, together with three
Sepoys, 27 camels, several horses, baggage waggons,
&c.—certainly the most gigantic expedition ever
fitted out in these colonies, but I am sorry to say it
is our peculiar weakness to do every thing gigan-
tically.

If your readers have curiosity enough to trace
the course of this expedition on the map, they will
find that in about lat. 32 deg. 30 min. the river Dar-
ling, after descending for a long distance in a south-
west direction, turns to the south and pursues a
southerly course till it falls into the Murray—about
40 miles east of the boundary line of South Australia,
which separates that colony from New South Wales,
north of the Murray, and Victoria, south of that
river. Where the Darling bends to the south will
be found on the maps a few small lakes; the lower
one marked Cowndilla Lake, the upper Laidley's
Ponds. The latter place has since been called Me-
nindie, but that name, though familiar to the
squatters on the Darling and to our ears of late,
has not yet found a place on any map that I have
seen in print. To Menindie the expedition proceeded
in the first instance on its way to Cooper's Creek,
and here an unfortunate dispute arose between Burke
and Landells, ostensibly about the camels, but
which was of such ana ture that had Burkegiven way
he would virtually have abandoned the command of
the expedition to his subordinate. Landells then
left the expedition, and, on the correspondence
which was published, public opinion pronounced its
verdict against Landells, and, I think, justly. There
was, indeed, scarcely colour enough in Landell's
case, even on his own statements, to enlist a party
in his favour. The press, however, did him some
wrong. He was accused of want of courage to face
the desert ; but there was no reason to charge him
with that. It was a struggle for authority, in
which he was beaten, and justly beaten. He over-
estimated his own importance as having especial
knowledge of camels. The expedition did not suffer
from his absence, and the final catastrophe did not
arise from the " camel difficulty." Dr; Beckler
took part with Landells, and quitted the party at
the same time.

The party at Menindie now consisted of 13 and
the three Sepoys. Here Burke judiciously divided
them into two parties. Burke himself, with Wills
and six others, proceeded to Cooper's Creek, leaving
the rest under Wright to bring up the stores to the
proposed depot. The journey to Cooper's Creek
took up 20 days, and brought them into December.
At Cooper's Creek Burke again divided his party,
leaving a man named Brahe with three or four
others (I am not quite sure of the number), to keep
charge of the depot and wait for his return ; or, as
Brahe says, to wait for three months; and, if Burke
and his party did not then return, to fall back on
Menindie. It was this doubt about the instructions
which forms one of the painful circumstances coi-
nected with the final catastrophe, the causes of
which are now under investigation.
On the 16th of December, 1860, Burke, accom-
panied by Wills and two men, King and Gray,
started for Eyre's Creek, with six camels, one horse,
and three months' provisions. Eyre's Creek is about
300 miles from Cooper's Creek, in a north-west
direction: It was " Sturt's farthest" in 1845, and
reaches 24 deg. south. There is another " Sturt's
farthest" on the map—a second track later in the
same year. It is not quite clear from the imperfect
journals to which of the two they allude, but at one
or the other they changed their course to the east-
ward until they struck the 140th meridian. They
there kept that meridian, travelling nearly due
north, until they reached 17 deg. 53 min. south,
which Wills in his imperfect journal calls the lower
part of the Cloncurry, but it seems almost certain
that this was the Albert River of Stokes, for they
were within the tidal influence. The mouth of the
Albert River is in 17 deg. 35 min. south, and 139
deg. 49 min. east. Captain Stokes in command of
the Beagle, ascended the river in hie boats in 1841,
and reached 18 deg. south. He gives a sketch of it
in his chart of the lower part of the Gulf of Carpen-
taria, published in 1846, and whether this
ohikls4ebos,edtehg
the
river they struck or another between it
a
hey then left their
east, it is clear that they overlappedT
far-
thest" by about a dozen miles.
camels and horses, and proceeded towards the sea
and, although appearitdoesofntohteGul, f yetby Itithrienjso,s urnals
that they had a view
jour-
nal contains pretty conclusive evidence that they
did reach it. Where they camped and started on
foot they could not have been more than 25 miles
from the sea. After travelling a considerable dis-
tance they come to a salt marsh which they cross.
They then come to " " a channel through which the
a water itlihre,y meet some blacks,
,Ni, s,ehopo outentinters.
to
them,
unasked, the best
part down,"—down to what ? Clearly, down
the channel to the see. They then " move
slowly down about three miles, and camp,"
and "next morning they start at daybreak," and
there the journal from Cooper's Creek to Carpen-
taria abruptly ends. The journal from Carpentaria
to Cooper's Creek commences on the 19th of Febru-
ary, when they began to retrace their steps. It was
during the journey back that Gray died. They
thought he was shamming, but when their own
sufferings came on Wills in his journal makes an
entry of regret for having so thought l—" The ex-
ertion required to get up a slight piece of rising
ground induces an indescribable sensation of pain