From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People

by Sven Anders Hedin

Burke was not alone. He had as many as fifteen Europeans with him. Some of them were men of science, who were to investigate the peculiar vegetation of the country, and the singular marsupials, the character of the rocks, the climate, and so on. One of them was named Wills. Others were servants, and had to look after the horses and transport.

The caravan started on August 20, 1860. That was the first mistake, for the heat and drought were then setting in. The men marched on undismayed, however, crossed Australia's largest river, the Murray, and came to its tributary, the Darling. There a permanent camp was pitched, and the larger part of the caravan was left there. Burke, Wills, and six other Europeans went on with five horses and sixteen camels towards the north-west, and in twenty-one days reached the river Cooper, which runs into Lake Eyre.

Here another camp was set up, several excursions were made in the neighbourhood, and a messenger was sent to the Darling to hurry up the men left behind. The messenger loitered, however, one week passed after another, and when nothing was heard of the men, Burke decided to march northwards with only three companions, Wills and the two servants King and Gray, six camels, two horses, and provisions for three months, and cross the continent to the coast of Queensland on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The other four were to remain with their horses and camels where they were until Burke came back, and were to leave the place only if absolutely obliged to do so.

All went well at first, but the country was troublesome and rough, wild and undulating (Plate XXXVIII.). As long as the explorers followed the sandy bed of the Cooper River they found pools of water in sufficient numbers. At midday the temperature in the shade was 97°, but it fell at night to 73°, when they felt quite cold.

Then they passed from bed to bed of temporary streams, carrying water only in the rainy season, and there the usual pools of water remained in the shade of dense copses of grass-trees, boxwood and gum-trees or eucalyptus. The last named were evidently not of the same species as the world-renowned blue gum-tree which occurs in Victoria and Tasmania, for this dries up marshes and unhealthy tracts and grows to its height of 65 feet in seven years. But the giant gum-tree is still more remarkable, for it attains a height of over 400 feet, and another species of eucalyptus has reached 500 feet.

The party had also to cross dreary plains of sand and tracts of clay cracked by the drought, and there they had to have their leather sacks filled with water. Sometimes they saw flocks of pigeons flying northwards, and were sure of finding water soon if they followed in the same direction. At some places there had been rain, so that a little grass had sprung up; in others the saltbushes were perishing from drought.

The animal life was very scanty. In the brief notes of the expedition few forms are mentioned except pigeons and ducks, wild geese, pelicans and certain other waders, parrots, snakes, fishes, and rats. They saw no kangaroos—those curious jumping and springing animals which carry their young for seven months in a pouch on the belly, and are as peculiar to Australia as the llama to South America; nor do the travellers speak of dingoes, the wild dogs of Australia, which are a terror to sheep farmers.

They saw Australian blacks clad with shields, long spears, and boomerangs, and nothing else. These naked, low-typed savages sometimes gave them fish in exchange for beads, matches, and other trifles. They were active as monkeys in the trees when they were hunting the beasts of the forest, but when they saw the camels they usually took to their heels. They had never seen such kangaroos before, with long legs both back and front, and also humpbacked.

After the travellers had crossed a hilly tract they had not far to go to the coast. From the last camp Burke and Wills marched through swamps and woods of palms and mangroves, but they never caught sight of the waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Forests hid them and swamps intervened when they were quite close to the shore. Burke had attained his aim: he had crossed Australia. But his exploit was of little use or satisfaction, least of all to himself, for his return was a succession of disasters, the most terrible journey ever undertaken in the fifth continent. Thunder, lightning, and deluges of rain marked the start southwards. The lightning flashes followed one another so closely that the palms and gum-trees were lighted up in the middle of the night as in the day. The ground was turned into a continuous swamp. In order to spare the camels, the tents had been left behind. Everything became moist, and the men grew languid; and when the rain ceased drought set in again and oppressive, suffocating heat, so that they longed for night as for a friend.

An emaciated horse was left behind. A snake eight feet long was killed, and following the example of the savages they ate its flesh, but were sick after it. Once when they were encamping in a cave in a valley, a downpour of rain came, filled the valley, and threatened to carry away themselves and their camp. Mosquitoes tormented them, and sometimes they had to lose a day when the ground was turned into slough by the rain.