The Explorers of Australia and their Life-workFavenc, Ernest
History
The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work
Favenc, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers
Wells formed a depot at a spot well provided with camel feed and water,
at some distance to the south-west of Forrest's Lake Augusta, which he
found, at that time, dry. Here he left the main part of his caravan to
await his return whilst he made a flying trip to the north. He was away
from the 10th of August to the 8th of September, during which he found at
his furthest point, a distance of two hundred miles, a good native well,
which he named Midway Well. On the 14th of September the whole party made
a start, and reached Midway Well on the 29th, all well. At Separation
Well, another good well a little farther to the north, the party
separated, C.F. Wells, a cousin of the leader, and G.L. Jones, intending
to travel for about eighty miles in a north-west direction to examine the
country, and then to return on a north-east course and rejoin the caravan
at Joanna Springs, which had relieved Warburton in his extremity. About
thirty miles south of Joanna Springs, where the leader expected the two
men to cut his tracks, Wells found his camels suffering terribly from the
extreme heat and their labours among the constantly-recurring
sand-ridges, whilst the scanty native wells they found were insufficient
to give their camels water. When at last they reached the latitude of
Joanna Springs they had been obliged to abandon three camels and all
their equipment except the actual necessaries.
It was also evident that the longitude of the springs given by Warburton
was wrong, for all the country around was a sandy desert without the
slightest indication of well or spring. To linger in such a spot was to
court destruction, and they had to push on to the Fitzroy as fast as
their worn-out camels could take them. The reader will remember that
Warburton had failed to find A.C. Gregory's most southerly point on
Sturt's Creek when looking for it, and it was afterwards proved that
Joanna Springs had been charted by him about ten miles to the westward of
its true position. On the 7th of November, in the darkness of morning
they at last reached the Fitzroy, with the camels just at their last
gasp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive