THREE EXPEDITIONS INTO THE INTERIOR OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA; WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THE RECENTLY EXPLORED REGION OF AUSTRALIA FELIX, AND OF THE PRESENT COLONY OF NEW SOUTH WALES: BY MAJOR T.L. MITCHELL, F.G.S. & M.R.G.S. SURVEYOR-GENERAL. SECOND EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED. ... IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME 1. LONDON: T. & W. BOONE, NEW BOND STREET. ... PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The following Journals were written at the close of many a laborious day, when the energies both of mind and body were almost exhausted by long-continued toil. The author trusts that this circumstance will account for, and palliate, some of the defects which may be discovered in his volumes. Conscious as he is of the deficiencies of his work, he nevertheless hopes that the reader will not pronounce it to be wholly devoid of interest. Though Australia calls up no historical recollections, no classical associations of ideas, it has other, and not less valid titles to our attention. It is a new and vast country, over the largest portion of which a veil of mystery still hangs; many of its productions vary in a singular manner, from those in other parts of the world; within the memory of man one British colony has risen there, in spite of adverse circumstances, to a high degree of prosperity; others have been founded, which promise to be equally successful; and it seems impossible to doubt that, at no distant period, the whole territory will be inhabited by a powerful people, speaking the English language, diffusing around them English civilisation and arts, and exercising a predominant influence over eastern Asia, and the numerous and extensive islands in that quarter of the globe.