Bonney, however, on another occasion, took a mob of cattle from the Goulburn River to Adelaide in almost a direct line. In February 1839, he left the Goulburn and steered a course for the Grampian Mountains, where he struck the Wannon, and followed it down to the Glenelg. Here he came upon one of the Henty stations, and was strongly advised not to persist in his attempt. Captain Hart, who had been examining the country with the same purpose in view as Bonney's, stated that it would be impossible to take cattle through and turned back with his own to follow the old route round the Murray bend. But Bonney was not to be daunted, and resolutely pushed on west of the Glenelg. He discovered and named Lake Hawdon, and also named two mountains, Mount Muirhead and Mount Benson. But at Lacepede Bay his most serious troubles commenced. The party had pushed on steadily to within forty miles of Lake Alexandrina when, in the middle of a sandy desert, the working bullocks failed. Bonney divided his party, and sending some of the men back to take the workers to a brackish pool which they had passed, he himself with the stockmen and two black boys, made a desperate effort to reach the Lake with the main mob. For two days they pushed steadily on, travelling day and night, until men and beasts were alike at their last gasp. Bonney then tried a desperate expedient: "I then determined," he says, "as a last resource, to kill a calf and use the blood to assuage our thirst. This was done, and though the blood did not allay the pangs of thirst to any great extent, it restored our strength very much."
The exhausted men then lay down to rest; but whilst they slept their thirsty beasts scented a faint smell of damp earth on a wandering puff of wind, and stampeded off to windward. Too weak to follow on at once, the men, after an hour or two, staggered after them and tracked them to a half-dry swamp, which still maintained a little mud and water. It was brackish, but palatable enough for men in their exhausted condition, and saved the lives of all. After some trouble in crossing the Murray, they reached Adelaide in safety with the stock.
When the news of their arrival reached Port Phillip, many other Overlanders were encouraged by Bonney's example to try the shorter route, and the trade in shipping cattle across the straits from Tasmania almost ceased.
Bonney had been born at Sandon, near Stafford, and educated at the Grammar School, Rugby. He had come out to Sydney in 1834, as clerk to Sir William Westbrooks Burton; but the love of adventure prevailed over his other inclinations, and in 1837, he joined Ebden in squatting pursuits, and eventually distinguished himself as one of the leading Overlanders. He subsequently settled in South Australia. From 1842 to 1857 he was Commissioner for Crown Lands, and he afterwards served the State as manager for railways, and in other capacities. Subsequently he returned to Sydney, where he died.
11.2. EYRE'S CHIEF JOURNEYS.
Edward John Eyre.
Edward John Eyre was the son of the Reverend Anthony Eyre, vicar of Hornsea and Long Riston, Yorkshire, and was born on August 14th, 1815. He was educated at Louth and Sedburgh Grammar Schools. He came to Australia in 1833, and immediately engaged in squatting pursuits, his enterprising spirit constantly leading him beyond the pale of civilization, where his natural love for exploration rapidly increased. His fortunes as an Overlander have already been noticed. On the 5th August, 1839, he left Port Lincoln, on the western shore of Spencer's Gulf, meaning to penetrate as far as he could to the westward. Some time before he had made an expedition to the north of Adelaide as far as Mount Arden, a striking elevation to the North-North-East of Spencer's Gulf. He had ascended this mount, and from the summit seen a depression which he took to be a lake with a dry bed. This lake afterwards played an important part in the history of South Australian settlement under the name of Lake Torrens.
Eyre's party on his westward trip consisted of an overseer, three men, and two natives. Twenty days after leaving Port Lincoln, they arrived at Streaky Bay, not having crossed a single stream, rivulet, or chain of ponds the whole distance of nearly three hundred miles. Three small springs only had been found, and the country was covered with the gloomy mallee and tea-tree scrub. Westward of Streaky Bay the country was still found to be scrubby; so Eyre formed a camp, and taking only a black boy with him, he forced a stubborn way onward, until he was within nearly fifty miles of the western border of South Australia. To all appearance the country was slightly more elevated than the level scrubby flats he had been traversing, but there was neither grass nor water, and an immediate return became necessary. Before he got back to Streaky Bay camp, he nearly lost three of his horses.