This journey settled the disputed point of "horses or bullocks, light carts, or heavy drays." The bullocks and the drays were a perpetual annoyance; to feed and water the one, and to drag the other, soon became the grand difficulty of the expedition. We find the Colonel perpetually leaving them to follow, when any peculiar object of exploration was in view. At length the whole "park" was left to take its rest, under the second in command; and the Colonel, with eight men, two native boys, fourteen horses, and two light carts, with provisions for ten weeks, moved to the northward, to trace where the division of the waters was to be found, and then follow some of them down to the Gulf.
We were not prepared for the beauty sometimes exhibited by the Australian landscape. The Journal compares it to a succession of Ruysdaels. "The masses of rock, lofty trees, shining sands, and patches of water in wild confusion; the mimosæ, the Anthistiria-grass, of a red brown, contrasting most harmoniously with the light green bushes; all those again so opposed to the dark hues of the casuarinæ, mimosæ, and rifted rocks, that a Ruysdael or a Gainsborough might have found an inexhaustible stock of subjects for the pencil."
This wild travelling has its discomforts, and now and then its dangers; but it is a perpetual source of exciting sensations. Every step is new, and every day's journey may place the traveller within some region of unexpected value or beauty. One of the hopes of the Journalist, on commencing this portion of his travels, was to discover a chain of hills to the northwest, from which he might trace the course of a river to the Gulf. At last this chain rose before his eyes.
"The most interesting sight to me was that of blue pics at a great distance to the northwest, the object of all my dreams of discovery for years. No white man had before seen them. There we might hope to find the division of the waters still undiscovered—the pass to Carpentaria still unexplored. I called this hill Mount First-View, and descended, delighted with what I had seen from its rocky crest." The latitude was 27°, yet the thermometer at sunrise was but at 45°, at noon 68°, and at 9 P.M. 45°.
The captivations of the scenery were equal to the delights of the temperature, though so near the tropics.—"An Australian morning is always charming. Amid those scenes of primæval nature it seemed exquisitely so. The barita or gymnoskina, the organ-magpie, was here represented by a much smaller bird, whose notes, resembling the softest breathings of a flute, were the only sounds that met the ear. What the stillness of evening adds to such sounds in other climes, is felt more intensely in the stillness of morn in this."
The forms of the vegetation, both tree and shrub, are picturesque, and the colours are finer still:—"Instead of autumnal tints, there is a perpetual blending of the richest hues of autumn with the most brilliant verdure of spring; while the sun's welcome rays in a winter's morning, and the cool breath of the woods in a summer morning, are equally grateful. This was in the depth of the Australian winter, and, which sounds oddly to the European ear, in the 'merry month of June.'"
Advancing still to the north, a country of an extraordinary kind was reached in July; and they had now found, that most important of all objects in a wilderness, a fine "flowing stream, full of sparkling water to the margin." The Journalist seems quite enamoured with the surrounding scene, a miniature Australian Switzerland:—"The hills overhanging it surpassed any I had ever seen, in picturesque outline. Some resembled Gothic cathedrals in ruins; some forts; other masses were perforated; and being mixed and contrasted with the flowing outlines of evergreen woods, and having a fine stream in the foreground, gave a charming appearance to the whole country. It was a vision worthy of the toils of a pilgrimage. Those beautiful recesses of unpeopled earth could no longer remain unknown. The better to mark them out on any map, I gave to the valley the name of Salvator Rosa. The rocks stood out sharply and sublimely from the thick woods, just as John Martin's fertile imagination would dash them out in his beautiful landscapes. I never saw any thing in nature come so near those creations of genius and imagination." But this river, which they followed for some time, ran so far to the east, that they justly began to doubt its being the one of which they were in search and they turned again to the north. They now passed into a fine level country, incomparably formed for settlement. "An almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a solitude corresponding to that of (southern) China, yet still unoccupied by man. A great reserve provided by Nature for the extension of his race."
They left the Salvator between the 21st and 22d degrees of latitude, and moved to the north-west. There at length their aspirations, though only partially, were probably realised. In the middle of September they reached some heights, from which lay before them a vast extent of open downs traversed by a river, traceable to the utmost verge of the horizon, and falling to the north-west! "Ulloa's delight at the first view of the Pacific could not have surpassed mine," is the natural exclamation of the Journalist. "Nor could the fervour with which he was impressed have exceeded my sense of gratitude for being allowed to make such a discovery. From that rock the scene was so extensive as to leave no room for doubt as to the course of the river, which, then and there revealed to me alone, seemed like a reward direct from Heaven for perseverance, and as a compensation for the many sacrifices which I had made, in order to solve the question as to the interior rivers of tropical Australia."
From the 16th to the 24th of September the course of the river was followed, which still was north-west, but at this period the party returned. The reason stated is the failure of provisions. This must have been a most vexatious disappointment—so vexatious, that we cannot comprehend how it could have been submitted to without some more remarkable effort than any thing that we find recorded in these pages. That an expedition equipped for a four months' journey should have turned back at the very moment when a few days', perhaps a few hours', march, might have completed its object, is altogether incomprehensible, while it had any conceivable means of subsistence. In such a condition of things, the traveller ought to have eaten his horse, if he could get nothing else. But there was actually, at no great distance behind, a depôt of their own bullocks and sheep, all feeding comfortably, and, as the party found on marching back to them, "Sheep and cattle fat, the whole a sort of farm." A good stackyard had been set up, a storehouse had been built, a garden had been fenced in, and contained lettuce, radishes, melons, and cucumbers. Indeed, the whole establishment exhibited the effects of good order and discipline.
Why, then, did not the Journalist return on his track, and establish the discovery which was the express object of his mission? This exceeds our knowledge. The only direct intimation of his necessities in these pages is, "our provisions were nearly out, the sun having reduced the mess sugar and melted the bacon, which had been boiled before we set out." Whether the lean of Australian bacon may liquefy in the sun is more than our European experience can tell, but we presume it must be ranked among the wonders of a new country; at all events, the Journalist returned without having done the very thing for which his expedition had been fitted out, and left the object to be completed by his subordinate, who was subsequently despatched in the direction of the north-west. Thus, though probabilities are in favour of the river, which the Colonel named the Victoria, the point is by no means settled, and Australian curiosity may be disappointed after all.