Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2Sturt, Charles
History
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2
Sturt, Charles
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Sturt, Charles, 1795-1869
The foregoing narrative will have given the reader some idea of the
state in which the last expedition reached the bottom of that extensive
and magnificent basin which receives the waters of the Murray. The men
were, indeed, so exhausted, in strength, and their provisions so much
reduced by the time they gained the coast, that I doubted much, whether
either would hold out to such place as we might hope for relief. Yet,
reduced as the whole of us were from previous exertion, beset as our
homeward path was by difficulty and danger, and involved as our
eventual safety was in obscurity and doubt, I could not but deplore the
necessity that obliged me to re-cross the Lake Alexandrina (as I had
named it in honour of the heir apparent to the British crown), and to
relinquish the examination of its western shores. We were borne over
its ruffled and agitated surface with such rapidity, that I had
scarcely time to view it as we passed; but, cursory as my glance was, I
could not but think I was leaving behind me the fullest reward of our
toil, in a country that would ultimately render our discoveries
valuable, and benefit the colony for whose interests we were engaged.
Hurried, I would repeat, as my view of it was, my eye never fell on a
country of more promising aspect, or of more favourable position, than
that which occupies the space between the lake and the ranges of St.
Vincent's Gulf, and, continuing northerly from Mount Barker, stretches
away, without any visible boundary.
It appeared to me that, unless nature had deviated from her usual laws,
this tract of country could not but be fertile, situated as it was to
receive the mountain deposits on the one hand, and those of the lake
upon the other.
FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE COAST.
In my report to the Colonial Government, however, I did not feel myself
justified in stating, to their full extent, opinions that were founded
on probability and conjecture alone. But, although I was guarded in
this particular, I strongly recommended a further examination of the
coast, from the most eastern point of Encounter Bay, to the head St.
Vincent's Gulf, to ascertain if any other than the known channel
existed among the sand-hills of the former, or if, as I had every
reason to hope from the great extent of water to the N.W., there was a
practicable communication with the lake from the other; and I ventured
to predict, that a closer survey of the interjacent country, would be
attended with the most beneficial results; nor have I a doubt that the
promontory of Cape Jervis would ere this have been settled, had Captain
Barker lived to complete his official reports.
CAPT. BARKER'S SURVEY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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