The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work

by Ernest Favenc

Taking one black boy with him, Eyre made a short trip to Lake Torrens, leaving the rest of the party to land the stores from the Waterwitch. He found the bed of the lake coated with a crust of salt, pure white, and glistening brilliantly in the sunshine. It yielded to the footstep, and below was soft mud, which rapidly grew so boggy as to stop their progress. In fact they had to return to the shore without being able to ascertain whether there was any water on the surface or not. At this point the lake appeared to be about fifteen or twenty miles across, having high land bounding it on the distant west.

There seemed no chance of crossing the lake; and following its shore to the north was impossible. There was neither grass nor water; the very rainwater turned salt after lying a short time on the saline soil. The only chance of success appeared to be to keep close to the north-eastern range, which Eyre named the Flinders Range, trusting to its broken gullies to supply them with some scanty grass and rainwater.

It was a cheerless outlook. On one side was an impassable lake of combined mud and salt; on the other a desert of bare and barren plains; whilst their onward path was along a range of inhospitable rocks.

"The very stones, lying upon the hills," says Eyre, "looked like scorched and withered scoria of a volcanic region, and even the natives, judging from the specimen I had seen to-day, partook of the general misery and wretchedness of the place."

He directed his course to the most distant point of the Flinders Range, but when he arrived there, he was obliged to christen it Mount Deception, as his hope of finding water there was disappointed. Subsisting as well as they could on rain puddles on the plains, Eyre and his boy searched about for some time and at last found a permanent-looking hole in a small creek. They then returned to the main party. Having concealed the supplies landed from the cutter, Eyre sent the vessel back to Adelaide with despatches, and moved the whole of the men out to the pool of water that he had just found. From this vantage point he made various scouting trips with the black boy, both to the eastward and westward of north. The 2nd of September found him on the summit of an elevation which he appropriately named Mount Hopeless, gazing at the salt lake that he now thought hemmed him in on three sides, even to the eastward. There was no prospect visible of crossing the lake, which seemed persistently to defy him, meeting him at every attempt with a barrier of stagnant mud. There was nothing for it but to leave the interior unvisited by this route, and to return to Mount Arden.

He divided his party, sending Baxter, the overseer, with most of the men and stores straight across to Streaky Bay, where he had formerly made a camp, while, with the remainder, he made his way to Port Lincoln. Having abandoned his intention to penetrate to the interior on a northern course, he now determined to push out westward, to King George's Sound, finding, perhaps, on the way across, some inducement that would lead him north.

At Port Lincoln he could not obtain the extra supplies he wanted without sending to Adelaide; it was therefore the 24th of October when he finally started for Streaky Bay. He found that Baxter had arrived there safely, and was anxiously awaiting him.

He now camped for many weeks at Fowler's Bay, which was as far as the cutter they now had, the Hero, could act as convoy, her charter not extending beyond South Australian waters. The Waterwitch having sprung a leak, the Hero had taken her place. During the time that they remained there, Eyre made many journeys ahead to estimate his chances of getting across the dry and barren country intervening between him and the Sound, but the outlook was disheartening. He met some natives, who all assured him that there was no water ahead; nor could he find any but some brackish water obtained by digging in some sandhills. Worse than all, he sacrificed three of his best horses during these fruitless attempts.

On the 25th of January, the Hero arrived with the oats and bran he had sent back for. So poverty-stricken was the country that Eyre, in the circumstances, resolved to send back nearly the whole of his expedition by the vessel, and then, with only a small party, to push through to King George's Sound or perish in the attempt.

Baffled successively to the north and to the west, Eyre had been put upon his mettle, and he could not endure the thought of returning to Adelaide a beaten man.