Australian Aborigines.
Nardoo Plant.
CHAPTER IV.
SEARCH PARTIES AND CONCLUSION.
We must now turn back to the time when Wright reached the Darling. As soon as it was known that Burke and the advance party had not been heard of for five months after leaving Cooper's Creek, great consternation was felt throughout all the colonies, and relief parties were organised and equipped with praiseworthy alacrity. A small contingent, under Mr. A. W. Howitt, was furnished by the Royal Society of Victoria, and started from Melbourne early in July to examine the banks of Cooper's Creek. On the 14th of August, McKinlay was sent out by the South Australian Government, with instructions to reach Cooper's Creek by way of Lake Torrens. Before the end of the same month, two other expeditions—one under Landsborough, and another under Walker—had set out to explore the region round about the Gulf of Carpentaria. These expeditions all prosecuted their search with eagerness, and through their instrumentality our geographical knowledge of the interior was greatly extended; but Mr. Howitt's party was the only one that succeeded in getting facts about the fate of the explorers.
Burying the body of poor Wills