Eyre was warmly welcomed on his return to Adelaide, and he was subsequently appointed police magistrate on the Murray, where his experience and knowledge of the natives was of great service. When Sturt started on his memorable trip to the central desert, he accompanied him for a long distance; but his active nature found vent in other fields than those of exploration in future.
Eyre was a man who was thoroughly distinguished by his love for the aborigines. In after life he was appointed their protector on the Murray, at the time when the continual skirmishes between the natives and the overlanders used to be a matter of almost daily occurrence.
The courage that he had exemplified, and his wonderful march round the Great Bight, was brought into force again and again, in efforts to keep peace between the rival races. The blacks of the Murray Bend were always notable for their warlike character, and Eyre was the most fitting man that could have been selected for the post.
CHAPTER VI.
Explorations around Moreton Bay—Development of the Eastern Coast—The first pioneers of the Darling Downs—Stuart and Sydenham Russell—The Condamine River and Cecil Plains—Great interest taken in exploration at this period—Renewed explorations around Lake Torrens—Surveyor-General Frome—Death of Horrocks, the first explorer to introduce camels—Sturt's last expedition—Route by the Darling chosen—Poole fancies that he sees the inland sea—Discovery of Flood's Creek—The prison depôt—Impossible to advance or retreat—Breaking up of the drought—Death of Poole—Fresh attempts to the north—The desert—Eyre's Creek discovered—Return and fresh attempt—Discoveries of Cooper and Strzelecki Creeks—Retreat to the Depôt Glen—Final return to the Darling—Ludwig Leichhardt the lost explorer—His great trip north—Finding of the Burdekin, the Mackenzie, Isaacs and Suttor—Murder of the naturalist Gibert—Discovery of the Gulf Rivers—Arrival at Port Essington—His return and reception— Surveyor-General Mitchell's last expedition—Follows up the Balonne— Crosses to the head of the Belyando—Disappointed in that river—Returns and crosses to the head of the Victoria (Barcoo)—The beautiful Downs country—First mention of the Mitchell grass—False hopes entertained of the Victoria running into the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Disappointing as all the attempts to penetrate to the north had been, the South Australians did not by any means abandon their efforts, either public or private, to ascertain the nature and value of the interior. The supposed horseshoe formation of Lake Torrens, presenting thus an impassable barrier, was discouraging, but hopes were entertained that breaks in it would be found that would afford a passage across; and beyond, the country might prove of a less repellent character than the district immediately around the lake.
But the east coast and the country at the back of the new settlement of Moreton Bay, now commands our attention, Such an important discovery as that made by Cunningham of the Darling Downs, needless to say, attracted the attention of the graziers of the settled districts in search of fresh pastures. The country west of the Darling having received such an unfavourable name from the explorers who had made any efforts beyond it. The westward march of the overlanders was checked in that direction, and their stock spread to the north, south, and south-cast.
In March 1840, Patrick Leslie, who has always been considered the father of settlement on the Darling Downs, left an outside station in New England, and after a short inspection of the scene of Cunningham's discovery, finally, in the middle of the year, settled down on the Condamine.
In 1841 the Condamine River was followed for a hundred miles by Messrs. Stuart and Sydenham Russell, from below Jimbour, the northernmost station on a Darling Downs creek; and on the return journey some of the party made an attempt to cross the range to the Wide Bay district, but were prevented by the scrub. In the following month, November, the flow of the Condamine was again picked up in the space below Turnmervil, the lowest station on a creek above Jimbour, and the channel of the river distinguished, where it was formerly supposed to have been for awhile lost. An extensive tract of rich grazing country was found open and well-watered by anabranches, with lagoons in their beds. This district has ever since borne the well-known name of Cecil Plains, then bestowed on it.
In 1842 Stuart Russell went from Moreton Bay to Wide Bay in a boat, and made an examination of some of the streams there emptying into the sea. Amongst other adventures the party picked up with an escaped convict who had been fourteen years with the blacks. During the same year Stuart Russell explored the country from Wide Bay to the Boyne (not the river named by Oxley in Port Curtis), and subsequently followed and laid down this stream throughout, crossing from inland waters on to the head of it. Russell's work in opening up so much available country, is a fair sample of the private explorations before referred to, which fill up such a large space of the record of discovery, and yet have received so little recognition that the remembrance of most of them has been quite lost, or preserved in such a way as to be hardly looked upon as reliable history.