Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/37

 The Forerunners ADELAIDE AND VICINITY II received. He urged the New South Wales Government to explore the country from the eastern part of P^ncounter Bay to the head of Gulf St. Vincent. And thus another forerunner completed his work with lasting and beneficial results. It would seem that the report of Captain Sturt induced the New South Wales Government, in 1831, to dispatch a second and smaller expedition to explore the country contiguous to Gulf St. Vincent. Captain Collett Barker, of the 39th I-'oot, was given charge of this, and had as companions Dr. Davis, assistant surgeon of the same regiment, and Mr. Kent, of the commissariat. Barker possessed considerable experience of Australian affairs, and had more than once paved the way for new settlements. He was at one time commandant of a colony at Raffles Bay, and at Albany succeeded Major Lockyer, who, in 1826, with convicts and a few soldiers, founded a settlement at King George Sound when the French had designs on the western territory. His equitable and firm management of the native families frequenting the Sound inaugurated the hapj)iest relations between white and black. He or his officers explored the picturesque scenery stretching for scores of miles from Albany. Barker was instructed to land at Cape Jervis, on the east coast of Gulf St. Vincent, thence to survey inland. In April, 1831, he arrived, made his way to the hills, and descried delightful scenery and well-grassed country. He beheld a magnificent panorama from the top of Mount Lofty, where no white man had ever stood, and over the rich open ])lain to the north-west viewed an indentation in the coast of the Gulf, which became the port of the City of Adelaide. He discovered and named the Sturt River, and after examining much fertile land, proceeded to Encounter Bay and the Murray Mouth, that he might correct the observations of Flinders with the discoveries of Captain Sturt. Here he soutjht to carry out the ' " •^ Cahain SruKT principal object of his trip, and went to where the waters of the Murray and the Lake disembogued, to see if there were a deep channel there, and swam across to take bearings on the eastern side. None of his companions could swim well enough to accompany him. He stripped, reached the opposite shore, ascended the sandy bluff long afterwards called by his name, and took several compass bearings. Then he disappeared from view down the farther side of the knoll, and was never seen again. His companions watched for his return with intense impatience. In the night they observed, with feelings of terrible apprehension, a chain of fires lighted by natives, and the breeze carried the plaintive and melancholy chants of women across the river. It is the custom of Australian aborigines to celebrate death in this impulsive manner. The brave but unsuspicious explorer had evidently been cruelly murdered by members of the black family which had been specially hostile to Sturt ; and it is the more i)athetic to contemplate when his uniform kindne.ss towards their contemporaries elsewhere is remembered. F"rom subsequent cross-examination, it was believed that Captain Barker, when descending the sand dune, was confronted by three natives, that they speared him, and then cast his