Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-09-04
GOVERNOR EYRE STILL ALIVE,
His Great Journey Through the Almost
Impenetrnble Australian Desert.

lhpenetrnDte Australian DeR8ft.
The death of Commander Brand
Just announced from Bath, will not be
noticed saved by those who knew him
but his decease reminds us of one of
the most stirring events in the history
of the last fifty years. Commander
Brand figured in the jamaica rebel.
lion, as commander of the Onyx. Gov
ernor Eyre still lives in quiet coun-
try house in Devon. His name is un-
familiar to the present generation, but
there are many people now alive who
remember when 1t was in every news
paper In the world. Tho world rang
in the early COS with the name Of
Edward John Eyre. He had become
Governor Of Jamaica in 1862, and soon
after the negroes began to agitate for
reform. They may have been right or
wrong, but every humhne man must
deplore the terrible sequel.
The suppression of the Jamaica riots
Is horrible reading, even now. -Four
hundred negroes were executed, six
hundred were flogged, thousand
houses were burned to the ground, and
at the end of it all Governor Eyre was
recalled. England was divided into
two camps. John Stuart Mil could
not rest until Eyre had been tried for
murder. Carlyle and Charles Kings
ley set mp a defence fund, and the Gov
ernor was acquitted. A year or two
afterward, when the excitement had
subsidized, Parliament refunded the e1-
Governor the cost of the trial and
pensioned him for life. And to-day,
strong and well at eighty-five, he en-
Joys his pension far from the maddipg
crowd.
Jamaica is not the only scene of
Governor Eyre's activity. He has
faced all the perils of the Australian
desert. Nobody had ever penetrated
the depths Of the desert when Edward
John Eyre, the Yorkshire clergyman's
son, who had set up as a sheep farm
er on the Lower Murray River, made
up his mind to leave his sheep and
make discoveries. Sixty years ago,
In 1910, the Government Of Australia
selected him to lead five Europeans
and three natives into the interior.
The journey proved to be impossible,
and the party turned back after find
ing two lakes which had never been
known before.
Again Eyre set out; he determined to
reach West Australia by the coast.
That dreary stretch of q thousand
miles was n quite untrodden path
when the Victorian era began, and it
was Edward John Eyre who told US
what we know of it to-day. 1t Is n
long and painful story-a story Of
tragedy and horror, lit up with bright
CLEANS Of heroisn; story of pathos
and treachery, and peril. Again and
again Eyre and his four companions
Baxter and three blaclls-were face
to face with death by starvation; they
had killed their very horses, which
they had loved as friends in solitude.
Baxter pleaded to be taken back, but
Eyre went on, and one night he came
to his hut to find Baxter murdered
and two of the blacks gone. Ee was
alone in an unknown desert with
black boy as his only companion and
n dead Englishman whose murderers
had escaped.
With the aid Of his faithful servant
he laid the body OF the Engllshman in
O. blanket on the rocky ground; to dig
n grave was impossible. Then, le2v-
ing the dead between the desert and
the sea, the two went on and on. king
Georges Sound was reached at hst,
and French whaler lay off the coast.
1t was heaven to the weary travellers.
and for eleven days they rested and
lived on decent food Three weeks
more took them to Albany, and from
Albany they reached Adelaide again
by the sea.
Such was the end of one of the most
perilous exploring feats on record. Ed
ward John Eyre and the boy Wyiie,
whose name should be set down among
the heroes, were the first human be-
ings to set foot on thousand miles
of our empire at the other side OF the
world. For twelve months they We're
from the desert to tell their stories to
the world, they We're not quite the
same mon who had left Spencer's Gulf
the year before. They had passed
through twelve months of agony al
most unrelleved. But they had added
one more page to the book of human
knowledge, and it is for this that the
world owes some gratitude to the
brave old man who is living quietly
down in Devonshire to-day.-St.
James's Gazette.