On October 14th, 1824, the party left Lake George. On reaching the Murrumbidgee they found it flooded, and after waiting three days, and the river continuing the same, an attempt was made to cross, and by means of the body of a cart rigged up as a punt with a tarpaulin, they succeeded.
On the south side of the river they found the country broken, and somewhat difficult to make good progress through, but it was all well grassed and adapted to grazing purposes. Here, as might have been anticipated, they soon had to leave their carts behind, and pack their cattle for the remainder of their journey. Following the Murrumbidgee, after a short distance they left it for a south-west course, which still led them through hills and valleys rich with good grass and running water.
On November 8th, they were destined to enjoy a sight never before witnessed by white men in Australia. Ascending a range, in order to get a view of the country ahead of them, they suddenly came in front of snowcapped mountains. There, under the brilliant sun of an Australian summer's day, rose lofty peaks that might have found a fitting home in some far polar clime, covered as they were for nearly one-fourth of their height with glistening snow.
Skirting this range, which was called the Australian Alps, the travellers, after eight days wandering through the spurs of the lofty mountains they had just seen, came on a fine flowing river, which Mr. Hume named after his father the "Hume," destined to be afterwards called the Murray when visited lower down.
Failing to find a ford, a makeshift boat was constructed by the aid of the useful tarpaulin, and the passage of the Hume safely accomplished. Still passing through good available country watered by fine flowing streams, on the 24th they crossed the Ovens River, and on the 3rd of December they came to another river, which they called the Hovell (now the Goulburn), and on the 16th of the same month reached the sea shore, near where Geelong now stands. Two days afterwards they commenced their return, and on the 18th January arrived at Lake George.
This exploration had a great and lasting bearing on the extension of Australian settlement. A few years after one of the highest authorities then in the colony had deemed the western interior, beyond a certain limit, unfitted for human habitation; and expressed his opinion that the monotonous flats over which he vainly looked for any rise, extended almost to the sea coast—snow-clad mountains, feeding innumerable streams, were discovered to the south of his track.
The successful and arduous expedition led by the young native-born explorer, had the twofold effect of exposing Oxley's fallacies, and teaching a lesson of caution to future explorers not to indulge hastily in general condemnation. This lesson, however, has not been heeded; the history of Australian exploration being a history of conclusions drawn one year, to be falsified the next. Hume's journey to Port Phillip at once added to the British-Colonial Empire millions of acres of arable land watered by never-failing rivers, with a climate calculated to foster the growth of almost any species of fruit or grain.
It is a pity that in concluding the review of an expedition, fraught with so much benefit to the colony, and carried out with so much courage, hardihood, and facility of resource, that it cannot also be said, and marked with the same cheerful spirit that pervaded those of Oxley's, but unfortunately, the evil feeling of jealously that would arise from the presence of two leaders, showed plainly throughout in petty and undignified squabbles, which, in after days, led to paper warfare between the two explorers. It is painful, if amusing, to read of the disagreement as to their course in very sight of the lately discovered Australian Alps, and how, on agreeing to separate and divide the outfit, it was proposed to cut the tent in half, and the only frying-pan was broken by both parties pulling at it.
Thomas Boyd, the only survivor of the party in 1883, who was then eighty-six years old, was the first white man to cross the Murray, which he did, swimming it with a line in his mouth. In the year named he signed a document, giving the credit of taking the party through in safety to Hume. Boyd himself was one of the most active members of the expedition, and always to the front when there was any work to be done.
The training that Hume received in this, and his former journey, admirably qualified him to become the companion of Sturt in his first expedition when he discovered the other great artery of the Murray system, the Darling. The young explorer was thus singularly fortunate in having his name connected with the discovery of two of the most important rivers in Australia. In the trip just narrated he and his companion, Hovell, had arrested the hasty conclusion that was being formed as to the aridity of the interior. The result of their expedition held out high hopes for any future explorer, and the report they brought in was afterwards fully confirmed by Major Mitchell.
CHAPTER III.
Settlement of Moreton Bay—Cunningham in the field again—His discoveries of the Gwydir, Dumaresque, and Condamine Rivers—The Darling Downs, and Cunningham's Gap through the range to Moreton Bay—Description of the Gap—Cunningham's death—Captain Sturt—His first expedition to follow down the Macquarie—Failure of the river—Efforts of Sturt and Hume to trace the channel—Discovery of New Year's Creek (the Bogan)—Come suddenly on the Darling—Dismay at finding the water salt—Retreat to Mount Harris—Meet the relief party—Renewed attempt down the Castlereagh River—Trace it to the Darling—Find the water in that river still salt—Return—Second expedition to follow the Morumbidgee—Favourable anticipations—Launch of the boats and separation of the party—Unexpected junction with the Murray—Threatened hostilities with the natives—Averted in a most singular manner—Junction of large river from the North—Sturt's conviction that it is the Darling—Continuation of the voyage—Final arrival at Lake Alexandrina—Return voyage—Starvation and fatigue—Constant labour at the oars and stubborn courage of the men—Utter exhaustion—Two men push forward to the relief party and return with succour.
In 1824, in consequence of the favourable report of Surveyor Oxley, a penal settlement was formed at Moreton Bay, but it was speedily removed to a better site on the Brisbane River, where the capital of Queensland now stands. The natives bestowed upon the abandoned settlement the name of "Umpie Bong," [Literally, dead houses] which name is still preserved as Humpybong.
In 1825 Major Lockyer made a long boat excursion up the Brisbane River, and the stream being somewhat swollen by floods, he was able to penetrate, according to his own account, nearly one hundred and fifty miles.
He was much taken with the promising nature of the country, both on the Brisbane and its tributary, the Bremer, and great hopes, happily fulfilled, were entertained of the success of the new settlement. During this year Mr. Cunningham had undertaken another journey to Liverpool Plains. Threading the pass he had formerly discovered and named Pandora's Pass, he crossed the plains, and ascended and examined the table land to the north, returning to Bathurst.
In 1827 this explorer, whose industry never flagged, started on the most eventful trip he ever made, destined to considerably affect the immediate progress of the new colony established at Moreton Bay. On the 30th of April he left Segenhoe Station, on the Upper Hunter, and on crossing Oxley's 1818 track to Port Macquarie, at once entered on the unexplored northern region. On the 19th May, after traversing a good deal of unpromising country, a fertile valley was entered, which led the travellers on to the banks of the Gwydir River, one of Cunningham's most important discoveries. He next found and named the Dumaresque River, and finally emerged on the beautiful plateau, thenceforth known as the Darling Downs, where the Condamine River received its name, after the Governor's aide-de-camp. Cunningham's description of this tract of pastoral country is very glowing:—
"Deep