Page:Expeditions of Discovery in South Australia (IA jstor-1798142).pdf/1

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any circumstances, expeditions which have contributed so much to extend our knowledge of the southern regions of the Australian continent, as those performed by Mr. John Eyre, in the years 1839-40-41, would have called for notice in the 'Journal' of the Geographical Society. The propriety of giving an account of them has become a necessity, since one of the gold medals placed at the Society's disposal has been awarded to him.

Mr. Eyre's connexion with the colony of Southern Australia commenced towards the close of 1837, with an undertaking characterised by the same spirit of adventurous hardihood that has enabled him to accomplish so much as a discoverer with comparatively limited resources. The practicability of driving cattle overland westward from New South Wales to Adelaide was at that time considered extremely problematical in Sydney, and few were willing to be the first to risk their property on such an adventure. More daring spirits, however, were willing to take the field, and, amongst others, Mr. Eyre and Messrs. Hawdon and Bonney. Mr. Eyre was the first to start, although the other two gentlemen, owing to the delays he encountered on the road, were the first to reach Adelaide. Mr. Eyre left Sydney with his party on the 8th of November, 1837. He diverged to the S. of the Murray, hoping to strike upon a more direct practicable route to Adelaide; but the country into which he had advanced proving sterile in the extreme, and devoid of water, he was obliged, when within 200 miles of his destination, to retrace his steps to where he quitted the river. Owing to this detention he did not reach Adelaide till the 13th of July, 1838. During this journey of eight months, in part through desert tracts, in part along the courses of rivers, which for Australia are thickly peopled and with warlike tribes, he, with his small party of six men, conducted in safety a herd of 300 cattle and three drays. The delay, therefore, to which his ambition to strike out a new path exposed Mr. Eyre, enabled him on the other hand to prove his possession' of the