The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888Favenc, Ernest
History
The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888
Favenc, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
During these two expeditions Grey had faced death in every shape, and
shown great powers of endurance, but the results of all his toil were but
meagre, and of no very great importance. He had crossed and named the
rivers running into the west coast, between where he abandoned his boats
and the Moore River, but in the state he was in he knew little more than
the fact that they were there, having neither strength nor resources to
follow them up and determine their courses. Grey claims the discovery of
the Gascoyne, Murchison, Hutt, Bower, Buller, Chapman, Greenough, Irwin,
Arrowsmith, and Smith Rivers. This disastrous journey may be said to have
concluded his services to Australia as an explorer, although he
afterwards, when Governor of South Australia, made an excursion to the
south-east, but it was through comparatively stocked and well-known
country in the neighbourhood of the Glenelg and Mount Gambier. Before
being appointed Governor of South Australia, he was Acting Government
Resident at Albany, King George's Sound.
Grey's mishaps, and the straits to which he reduced his party by his
occasional want of forethought and precaution, show plainly that
enthusiasm, courage, and a generous spirit of self-sacrifice are not the
only requisites in an explorer, more important even, being the long
training and teaching of experience.
Grey had given a very glowing description of the fertile appearance of a
portion of the country he passed through, and some of the colonists were
eager to make use of such a promising district. The schooner CHAMPION was
therefore directed to examine the coast and see if any of the rivers had
navigable entrances. Mr. Moore, after whom the Moore River was named, was
on board of the vessel, but no entrance was effected, although the party
rather confirmed Grey's report. Captain Stokes, of the BEAGLE, however,
soon after made a thorough examination of this part of the coast, and his
report was so unfavourable that its immediate settlement was postponed.
It follows now, that the unexplored country west of the Darling being so
much sooner reached from Adelaide than from Sydney, the former town
became the point of departure from which, in future, the expeditions for
the interior started.
But the rush for country, and the constant influx of stock from the
mother colony, led to a series of petty explorations being continually
carried on throughout the rapidly-rising district south and east of the
Murray. Some of these were undertaken in quest of new runs, others in
order to find the best and shortest stock routes; and the record of most
of them is only preserved in the memoirs Of personal friends of the
pioneers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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