The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1924-02-22
THE AUSTRALIAN DESERT
A. D. 1860


When the Eternal Father was max
ing the earth, at one time He filed the
sea with swimming dragons, the air
with flying dragons, and the land with
hopping dragons big as elephants; but
they were not a success so He swept
them all away. After that He filed
the southern continents with small
improved hopping dragon, that laid no
eggs, but carried the baby in pouch.
There were queer half-invented fish,
shadeless trees, and furry running
birds like the emu and the mOa. Then
He swamped that southern world I'M
der the sea, and moved the workshop
20 our northern continents. But He
left New Zealand and Australia just as
they were, scrap of the half-finished
world with furry running birds, the
hopping kangaroo, the shadeless trees
and half-inYented fish.
So when the English. went TO Aus
tralia it was not an ordinary voyage,
but a journey backward through the
ages, through goodness only knows
day of creation. 1t was like visiting
the moon or Mars. To live and travel
in such a strange land a man must be
native born, bush raised. and cunning
at that, on pain OF death by famine.
The first British settlers, too, were
convicts.
Later on, gold was discovered, and
free settlers drifted in. filing the coun-
try, but the miners and the farmers
We're too busy earning a living TO do
much exploration. So the exploring
fell to English gentlemen, brave men,
but hopeless tenderfeet, who knew
nothing of bushcraftr and generally
died of hunger or thirst in districts
where the native-born colonial grows
rich today.
Edgar John Eyre, for instance. a
Yorkshireman, landed In Sydney at
the age of sixteen, and at twenty-five
was a rich sheep-farmer, appointed by
government protector of the bIackfel-
lows. In 1910 the colonists of South
Australia wanted a trail for drifting
sheep into Western Australia, and
young Eyre, from what he had learned
among the sayages, said the scheme
was all bOsh, in which he was perfect
ly right He thought that the best
line for exploring was northward, and
set out TO prove his words, but got tan
gled up in the salt boys surrounding
Torrens, and very nearly lost his hole
party in an attempt to wade across.
After that failure he felt that he had
wasted the money subscribed in a Wild
cat project, so, to make good, set out
again to find a route for sheep along
the waterless south coast of the CONT
nent.
Eyre's party consisted of himself and
his ranch foreman, Baxter, a favorite
black boy, Wylie, who was his servant,
and two other natives who had been
on the northward trip. They had nine
horses, pony, six sheep, and nine
weeks rations on the pack animals.
The first really dry stage was one
hundred twentyeight miles without a
drop OF water, and it was not the black
fellows, but Eyre, the tenderfoot, who
saved them The animals died off one
by one, so that the stores had TO be
left behind, and there was no food but
rotten hOrsefesh, which caused dysen-
terry, no water save dew collected with
a sponge from the bushes after the cold
nights. The two blackfellows desert
ed, but, after three days, came back
penitent and starving, thankful to be
reinstated.
These blackfeIlcws did not believe
the trip was possible, they wanted TO
go home, they thought the expedition
well worth plundering, and so, one
morning, while Eyre was rounding up
the horses, they shot Baxter, plundered
the camp and bolted. Only Eyre and
his boy Wylie were left, but if they
lived the deserters might be punished
So the two blackfellows, armed with
Bakers gun, tried to hunt down Eyre
and his boy with a view TO murder.
A week later, still following the coast
of the Great Blight, WyIie discovered a
French ship lying at anchor, and the
English skipper fed the explorers for
a fortnight, until they were well
enough to go on. Twenty-three more
days of terrible suffering brought Eyre
and his boy, looking like brace of
scarecrows, TO a hilltop overlooking
the town Of Albany. They had reached
Western Australia, the first travellers
TO cross from the eastern TO the west
ern colonies.
In after years Eyre was governor of
Jamaica.