The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work

by Ernest Favenc

CHAPTER 11. EDWARD JOHN EYRE.

11.1. SETTLEMENT OF ADELAIDE AND THE OVERLANDERS.

The exploration of the centre of the continent was long retarded by the difficult nature of the country -- by its aridity, its few continuously-watered rivers, and the supposed horse-shoe shape of Lake Torrens, which thrust its vast shallow morass across the path of the daring explorers making north.

For most of us of the present day, to whom Lake Torrens is but a geographical feature, it is hard to imagine the sense of awe it inspired in the breasts of the South Australian settlers, who appeared to be cut off completely from the north by its gloomy and forbidding environs of salt and barrenness.

In 1836, Colonel Light surveyed the shores of St. Vincent's Gulf, and selected the site of the city of Adelaide. Governor Hindmarsh and a company of emigrants arrived soon afterwards, and the Province of South Australia was proclaimed.

The very promising discoveries made to the south of the Murray by Major Mitchell soon induced an invasion of adventurous pastoralists bringing their stock from the settled parts of New South Wales.

Charles Bonney led the way across to the Port Phillip settlement in 1837 with sheep. G.H. Ebden accompanied him, and they were shortly followed by many more: Hamilton, Gardiner, Langbourne, and others, whose names are well-known in Australian history as the first Overlanders. Very shortly this overlanding of stock was extended to the newly-founded city of Adelaide, Charles Bonney and Joseph Hawdon being the first drovers on this long journey. Their Adelaide journey was in fact an exploration trip, and an important one, as they followed the bank of the Murray below its junction with the Darling; this part of the river having been followed down before only by Sturt, and then only by water.

It was in January, 1838, that Hawdon and Bonney left Mitchell's crossing at the Goulburn River with cattle as pioneers on the overland route to Adelaide. Unknown to them they were closely followed by E.J. Eyre, with another mob of cattle. Eyre, as we shall afterwards see, was thrown out of the race through trying to make a short cut to avoid the sweeping bend of the river. Bonney and Hawdon crossed the Murray above the junction of the Darling, and in places found the bed of the latter river dry. The natives, strange to say, were quite friendly; perhaps they had taken to heart the lesson Mitchell had read them. But their amiable demeanour did not last long. Bonney and Hawdon were almost the last overlanding party to proceed unmolested. Within a comparatively short time afterwards, an incessant war began to be waged between the blacks and every Overlander who passed down the Murray. It ended only with the sanguinary battle of the Rufus. More fortunate than Sturt, Hawdon and Bonney were able to cut off many of the wearisome bends that had so fatigued Sturt's crew. Sturt had had to follow every turn and curve, whilst the Overlanders avoided the bends of the Murray by following the native paths, which spared them in some cases a journey of one or two days. It was while following a native path that they discovered and named Lake Bonney. At last they sighted the Mount Lofty ranges, and after some difficulty in getting through some rough mallee-covered country, arrived at Adelaide, and gladdened the residents with the prospect of roast beef. "Up to this time," says Bonney in his diary, "they had been living almost exclusively on kangaroo flesh." Eyre, whose name was afterwards so closely allied with a famous story of thirst and hardship, narrowly escaped with his life during his overlanding trip.

It was owing to a very natural mistake that Eyre was led astray. He intended to try a straighter and shorter route than the one round the Murray, and for a time got on very well, but coming across a tract of dry country across which he could not take the cattle, he determined to follow Mitchell's Wimmera River to the north, naturally thinking that it would lead him easily to the Murray, and would probably prove to be identical with the Lindsay, as marked on Sturt's chart. From Mitchell's furthest point, he traced it a considerable distance to the north-west, and at last found its termination in a large swampy lake, which he called after the first Governor of South Australia, Lake Hindmarsh. From this lake he could find no outlet, so taking with him two men, he made an attempt to push through to the Murray, leaving his cattle to await him. He found the country covered with an almost impenetrable mallee scrub, and as there was neither grass nor water for the horses, he was forced to retreat. He reached his camp after a weary struggle on foot, the horses having died from thirst. Eyre was then compelled to return and gain the bank of the Murray by the nearest available route. The bitter disappointment of the trip was, that when forced to retreat by the inhospitable nature of the country, he was but twenty-five miles from the river.