A short rest at the Depot was followed by another expedition, Captain Sturt being on this occasion accompanied by Mr. Stuart and two men. The seventh day of their journey brought them to the banks of a fine creek, now so well known as Cooper Creek in connection with the fate of those unfortunate explorers, Burke and Wills. At two hundred miles from Cooper Creek Captain Sturt and his party were again met by the Stony Desert, but slightly varied in its aspect. Before abandoning his attempt to proceed, the leader of the expedition laid the matter before his companions, and he writes as follows: "I should be doing an injustice to Mr. Stuart and my men, if I did not here mention that I told them the position we were placed in, and the chance on which our safety would depend if we went on. They might well have been excused if they expressed an opinion contrary to such a course; but the only reply they made me was to assure me that they were ready and willing to follow me to the last."
With much reluctance, however, Captain Sturt determined to return to Cooper Creek without delay. They travelled night and day without interruption, and on the morning of their arrival at the creek, one of those terrible hot north winds, so much dreaded by the colonists, began to blow with unusual violence. Lucky was it for them that it had not overtaken them in the Desert, for they could scarcely have survived it. The heat was awful; a thermometer, graduated to 127 degrees, burst, though sheltered in the fork of a large tree, and their skin was blistered by a torrent of fine sand, which was driven along by the fury of the hurricane. They still had fearful difficulties to encounter, but after an absence of nineteen months they returned safely to Adelaide.
The discouraging account of the interior which was brought by Captain Sturt did not prevent other explorers from making further attempts; but the terrible fate of Kennedy and his party on York Peninsula, and the utter disappearance of Leichardt's expedition, both in the same year (1848), had a very decided influence in checking the progress of Australian exploration. Seven years later, in 1855, Mr. Gregory landed on the north-west coast for the purpose of exploring the Victoria River, and after penetrating as far south as latitude 20 degrees 16 minutes, longitude 131 degrees 44 minutes, he was compelled to proceed to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thence to Sydney along the route taken by Dr. Leichardt in 1844. Shortly after his return Mr. Gregory was despatched by the Government of New South Wales in 1857, to find, if possible, some trace of the lost expedition of the lamented Leichardt; his efforts, however, did nothing to clear up the mystery that enshrouds the fate of that celebrated explorer.* (* It is possible that Mr. McKinlay has been hasty in the opinion he formed from the graves and remains of white men shown to him by Keri Keri, and the story related of their massacre. May they not belong to Leichardt's party?)
The colonists of South Australia have always been distinguished for promoting by private aid and public grant the cause of exploration. They usually kept somebody in the field, whose discoveries were intended to throw light on the caprices of Lake Torrens, at one time a vast inland sea, at another a dry desert of stones and baked mud. Hack, Warburton, Freeling, Babbage, and other well-known names, are associated with this particular district, and, in 1858, Stuart started to the north-west of the same country, accompanied by one white man (Forster) and a native. In this, the first expedition which he had the honour to command, he was aided solely by his friend Mr. William Finke, but in his later journeys Mr. James Chambers also bore a share of the expense.* (* It is greatly to be regretted that both these gentlemen are since dead. Mr. Chambers did not survive to witness the success of his friend's later expeditions, and the news of Mr. Finke's death reached us while these sheets were going through the press.) This journey was commenced in May, 1858, from Mount Eyre in the north to Denial and Streaky Bays on the west coast of the Port Lincoln country. On this journey Mr. Stuart accomplished one of the most arduous feats in all his travels, having, with one man only (the black having basely deserted them), pushed through a long tract of dense scrub and sand with unusual rapidity, thus saving his own life and that of his companion. During this part of the journey they were without food or water, and his companion was thoroughly dispirited and despairing of success. This expedition occupied him till September, 1858, and was undertaken with the object of examining the country for runs. On his return the South Australian Government presented him with a large grant of land in the district which he had explored.
Mr. Stuart now turned his attention to crossing the interior, and, with the assistance of his friends Messrs. Chambers and Finke, he was enabled to make two preparatory expeditions in the vicinity of Lake Torrens—from April 2nd to July 3rd, 1859, and from November 4th, 1859, to January 21st, 1860. The fourth expedition started from Chambers Creek (discovered by Mr. Stuart in 1858, and since treated as his head-quarters for exploring purposes), on March 2nd, 1860, and consisted of Mr. Stuart and two men, with thirteen horses. Proceeding steadily northwards, until the country which his previous explorations had rendered familiar was left far behind, on April 23rd the great explorer calmly records in his Journal the following important announcement: "To-day I find from my observations of the sun that I am now camped in the CENTRE OF AUSTRALIA." One of the greatest problems of Australian discovery was solved! The Centre of the continent was reached, and, instead of being an inhospitable desert or an inland sea, it was a splendid grass country through which ran numerous watercourses.
Leaving the Centre, a north-westerly course was followed, but, after various repulses, a north-easterly course eventually carried the party as far as latitude 18 degrees 47 minutes south, longitude 134 degrees, when they were driven back by the hostility of the natives. As has already been stated, Mr. Gregory in 1855, starting from the north-west coast, had penetrated to the south as low as latitude 20 degrees 16 minutes, longitude 127 degrees 35 minutes. Mr. Stuart had now reached a position about half-way between Gregory's lowest southward point and the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Without actually reaching the country explored by Gregory, he had overlapped his brother explorer's position by one degree and a half, or more than one hundred miles, and was about two hundred and fifty miles in actual distance from the nearest part of the shores of the Gulf. It is important to remark that the attack of the savages which forced Mr. Stuart to return occurred on June 26th, 1860, so that he had virtually crossed the continent two months before Messrs. Burke and Wills had left Melbourne.* (* They did not leave Cooper Creek until December 14th, rather more than a fortnight before Mr. Stuart started on his fifth expedition.)
On New Year's day 1861, Mr. Stuart again left Adelaide, aided this time by a grant from the Colonial Government of 2500 pounds, in addition to the assistance of his well-tried friends Messrs. Chambers and Finke. He made his former position with ease, and advanced about one hundred miles beyond it, to latitude 17 degrees, longitude 133 degrees; but an impenetrable scrub barred all further progress, and failing provisions, etc., compelled him, after such prolonged and strenuous efforts that his horses on one occasion were one hundred and six hours without water, most reluctantly to return. The expedition arrived safely in the settled districts in September, and the determined explorer, after a delay of less than a month, was again despatched by the South Australian Government along what had now become to him a familiar road. This time success crowned his efforts; a passage was found northwards through the opposing scrub, and leaving the Gulf of Carpentaria far to the right, the Indian Ocean itself was reached. Other explorers had merely seen the rise and fall of the tide in rivers, boggy ground and swamps intervening and cutting off all chance of ever seeing the sea. But Stuart actually stood on its shore and washed his hands in its waters! What a pleasure it must have been to the leader when, knowing well from his reckoning that the sea must be close at hand, but keeping it a secret from all except Thring and Auld, he witnessed the joyful surprise of the rest of the party!
The expedition reached Adelaide safely, although for a long time the leader's life was despaired of, the constant hardships of so many journeys with scarcely any intermission having brought on a terrible attack of scurvy. The South Australian Government in 1859 liberally rewarded Mr. Stuart and his party for their successful enterprise.* (* Mr. Stuart's qualities as a practised Bushman are unrivalled, and he has always succeeded in bringing his party back without loss of life.) On the 10th of March a resolution was passed to the effect that a sum of 3500 pounds should be paid as a reward to John McDouall Stuart, Esquire, and the members of his party, in the following proportions: Mr. Stuart 2000 pounds; Mr. Keckwick 500 pounds; Messrs. Thring and Auld 200 pounds each; and Messrs. King, Billiatt, Frew, Nash, McGorrerey, and Waterhouse, 100 pounds each. Perhaps this is the most fitting place to express Mr. Stuart's appreciation of the honour done him by the Royal Geographical Society of London, in awarding him their gold medal and presenting him with a gold watch. He wishes particularly to express his hearty thanks to Sir Roderick Murchison, and the other distinguished members of the society, for the lively interest they have evinced in his welfare.
Mr. Stuart's experiences have led him to form a very decided opinion as to the cause of the well-known hot winds of Australia, so long the subject of scientific speculation. North and north-west of Flinders Range are large plains covered with stones, extending as far as latitude 25 degrees. To the north of that, although the sun was intensely hot, there were no hot winds; in fact from that parallel of latitude to the Indian Ocean, either going or returning, they were not met with. "On reaching latitude 27 degrees on my return," writes Mr. Stuart, "I found the hot winds prevailing again as on my outward journey. I saw no sandy desert to which these hot winds have been attributed, but, on lifting some of the stones that were lying on the surface,* I found them so hot that I was obliged to drop them immediately. (* On the surface, as I suppose, of the large plains North of Flinders Range. ED.) It is my opinion that when a north wind blows across those stone-covered plains, it collects the heat from them, and the air, becoming rarified, is driven on southwards with increased vehemence. To the north of latitude 25 degrees, although exposure to the sun in the middle of the day was very oppressive, yet the moment we got under the shade of a tree we felt quite alive again; there was none of that languid feeling which is experienced in the south during a hot wind, as for example that which blew on the morning after reaching the Hamilton,* in latitude 26 degrees 40 minutes. (* Journal 1861 to 1862.) That was one of the hottest winds I ever experienced. I had the horses brought up at 7 o'clock, intending to proceed, but seeing there was a very hot wind coming on, I had them turned out again. It was well I did so, for before 10 o'clock all the horses were in small groups under the trees, and the men lying under the shade of blankets unable to do anything, so overpowering was the heat." Unfortunately, Mr. Stuart had no thermometer.
Mr. Stuart is anxious to direct attention to the establishment of a Telegraph line along his route. On this subject he writes as follows:—