Australian Heroes and Adventurers

Robert O'Hara Burke.
From Photo —Hill, Melbourne.]
LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE, AND MELBOURNE. 1889.
This book is the first of a series which the Publisher intends to issue, illustrative of life and adventure in the Australian Colonies and the Islands of the Pacific. It has been carefully compiled from reliable sources of information—viz., Wills's Diary , King's Narrative , Howitt's Diary , Wood's Explorations in Australia , Withers's History of Ballarat , Sutherland's Tales of the Gold-fields , Raffello's Account of the Ballarat Riots , McCombie's History of Victoria , etc., etc. Most of these books are very expensive or out of print, and therefore not easily procurable at the booksellers.
In the succeeding volumes of the series it is proposed to give— Buckley, the Runaway Convict, and his Black Friends, John Batman, the Founder of Melbourne, Fawkner, the Pioneer, Early Days of Tasmania, Botany Bay Tales, Remarkable Convicts, Notorious Bushrangers, Brave Deeds, Squatting Tales, Remarkable Personal Adventures, Curious Anecdotes, etc., etc.
Melbourne, 1889.
Map Route.

TWO HEROES OF EXPLORATION.
ACROSS AUSTRALIA.
There stood for twenty years, at the intersection of Collins and Russell Streets, the only monument which the city of Melbourne can boast of. Increasing traffic has recently necessitated its removal to a small reserve opposite our Parliament Houses, where it occupies a most commanding position at one of the chief entrances of the city. It is the lasting memorial of two men and the expedition they led across the continent of Australia. It stands in silent and solemn grandeur amidst the noisy turmoil of a busy thoroughfare—two massive figures gazing earnestly and longingly, seemingly in a solitude as complete as the deepest seclusion of the lonely plains of the interior, where the heroes whose memory they perpetuate met their fate. No inscription tells the curious visitor or wayfarer who they are, or records the deeds that have gained them such a high place in the estimation of the citizens of Victoria. The story is an old one in these days of rapidly passing events, but we think it will bear repetition, and, therefore, in the following pages we will do our best to relate the events that led to the erection of so magnificent a memorial.