A few weeks later the citizens of Melbourne, once again aroused to extravagant enthusiasm, lined the streets through which the only survivor of the only Victorian Exploration Expedition was to pass.
'Here he comes! Here he comes!' rang throughout the crowd as King was driven to the Town Hall to tell his narrative to the company assembled there.
'There is a man!' shouted one—'There is a man who has lived in hell.'
A few months later Howitt was again sent to Cooper's Creek to exhume the bodies of Burke and Wills and bring them to Melbourne. They were honoured by a public funeral, and a monument was erected to their memory—
'A statue tall, on a pillar of stone,
Telling its story to great and small
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste lone.'