Thamanampalli Surekha

successful colonisation by the Anglo-Saxon race, for all attempts to establish settlements of a like nature on the western, northern, and north-eastern coasts have hitherto failed, as at Part Essington and Port Curtis; or but slightly succeeded, as at Swan River and King George's Sound. The existence of this desert was problematical, until the father of Australian explores, Captain Sturt, penetrated into its arid plains in 1845, while commanding an expedition formed by the South Australian government, to cross the island from north to south. After suffering great privations from thirst and hunger, under a heat which raised the thermometer to 137° in the shade, Captain Sturt and his gallant band were forced to return from this inhospitable region before they had reached half way across. Other exploring parties had previously been repulsed in their attempts to penetrate this terra incognito from the east coast an account of its barrenness. At the same time they all concurred in the opinion that it was a desert; most probably depressed below the level of the sea, where fresh water and vegetation was not to be found. Of all the indefatigable explores, however, who have enlarged our knowledge of Australian geography, Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt has been the most zealous to clear up this questionable point; and we have every reason to believe that he has sacrificed his life in the attempt. During his successful overland expedition from Sydney to port Essington he did much towards defining the extent of this region to the north-east. But still his explorations were confined to that territory, and its shed of waters, between this desert and the sea-coast. On his return he was impressed with the idea that this great object of Australian discovery was to be accomplished by proceeding from the high table-land situated about two degrees inland from the east coast, in 26° south latitude, and directing his course towards Western Australia, a distance little short of 3000 miles in a direct line; and hoping to find in the desert region between, a succession of oasis, like those in the Arabian and African deserts, which would enable him to recruit his party on the journey. He was likewise confirmed in the supposition that such oasis existed in the interior from some remarkable circumstances related upon this head by the settlers, on undoubted testimony, which were to this effect, that some cattle which had been taken by sea from New South Wales to Swan River settlement in Western Australia, were known to have returned overland to the station where they had been bred. An amount of instinct perfectly astounding, and which is borne out by fact of a lesser degree, that have occurred amongst the horses and cattle in the pastoral districts of Australia, and equally surprising. Leichhardt concluding from this, that if there were provender and water for cattle on the way the accomplished of an overland route from Eastern to Western was as likely to be done as his journey to Port Essington, even although he should not across the desert; with those sanguine expectations, backed by his hard-earned experience, he formed a party of ten, with the same slender equipment which satisfied all purpose in his previous route, and started from the Moreton Bay district on the east coast for the for west in the spring of 1847. Since then no tidings have been heard of either himself or his companies. And the probability is, that if they have not been massacred by hostile aborigines, their starved bodies are buried under the sands of the great desert. From this general view of the entire island, let us now glance at the geographical features of the two provinces through which our narrative will soon lead us; what we may now term the Gold Provinces of the British Empire. On reference to the subjoined map* of this valuable section of Australia, it will be seen that it forms the South-east angle of the island, and is comprised within the original boundary of the well-known colony of New South Wales, the oldest of the British dependencies in the southern hemisphere, around which we may safely affirm all our other plantations in Australia have gathered and obtained nourishment. And had it not been for the energy and perseverance displayed by the local governments in the early establishment of this colony, it is more than probable that this great south land would still have been a terra incognito on the map of the world; and the glorious future, opening up to the energies of our fellow-subjects in that Anglo- Australian empire, would have been still hidden in the womb of time. [*Map reproduced at the end of this ebook] The province of Victoria, better known as Port Phillips, forms the southern portion of this section being divided from the parent colony by the Murray river; and from its neighbour, South Australia, by an artificial boundary in longitude 141° east, with its sea-coast facing the south, including in its extent the northern shore of Bass's Strait. On comparing the extent of this province on the map with one of England on the same scale, we perceive a similarity of size and form, Victoria being nearly one-fifth larger; and yet it is only about one- thirtieth part of the entire superficies of Australia Notwithstanding this large slice off the mother colony, New South Wales still posses an extent of territory three times that of Victoria, with a seaboard on the South Pacific, from Cape Howe to 26° south latitude, being a distance of 750 miles. In addition to this geographical information, it will not be out of place to bear in mind that the alternations of day and night are nearly opposite in the meridians of Australia, and the succession of the seasons entirely