Frontier and pioneer life -- Australia -- Queensland
"His bones with reverence ye shall bear.
To where some crystal streamlet flows:
There by its mossy banks prepare
The pillow of his long repose.
"It shall be by a stream whose tides
Are drank by birds of every wing,
Where Nature resting but abides
The earliest awakening touch of spring.
"But raise no stone to mark the place.
For faithful to the hopes of man.
The Being he so loved to trace,
Shall breathe upon his bones again.
"Oh meet that he who so carest,
All bounteous Nature's varied charms,
That he her martyred son should rest
Within his mother's fondest arms.
"And there upon the path he trod,
And bravely led his desert band,
Shall science like the smile of God
Come brightening o'er the promised land.
"How will her pilgrims hail the power,
Beneath the drooping Myall's gloom.
To sit at eve and muse an hour,
And pluck a leaf from Leichhardt's tomb."
--Lynd.
The following descriptions are taken from a journal of an expedition
into the interior of tropical Australia in search of a route from Sydney
to the Gulf of Carpentaria by Lieut.-Colonel Sir T. L. Mitchell,
Surveyor-General of New South Wales, in 1845.
The money for this attempt was found by the Legislative Council of New
South Wales. The Secretary for the Colonies sanctioned the expedition,
which had been suggested by the leader himself, during a slack time in
his department. This trip, though it never approached the Gulf, or even
its watershed--which was its main object at starting--nevertheless
discovered such an extent of available country as to make it one of the
most valuable and interesting expeditions that were ever carried out in
North Queensland. This was Mitchell's third exploring trip, and it is
referred to now, as it relates to the discovery and opening up of a
large part of western, as well as a part of North Queensland. There is
no doubt that Mitchell would have reached the Gulf waters if his
equipment had not been so cumbersome and altogether dependent on good
seasons. An account of his outfit will be interesting reading in these
times when people think little of moving from the South to the North of
Australia with any kind of a party, and his departure must have looked
like the start of a small army on the move to conquer a new country. Sir
Thomas Mitchell took with him eight drays drawn by eighty bullocks, two
iron boats, seventeen horses (four being private property), and three
light carts; these were the modes of conveyance. There were 250 sheep to
travel with the party as a meat supply. Other stores consisted of
gelatine and a small quantity of pork. The party consisted of thirty
persons, most of whom were prisoners of the Crown in different stages of
probation, whose only incentive to obedience and fidelity was the
prospect of liberty at the end of the journey. According to the
testimony of their leader, they performed their work throughout
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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