Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/81

 The Builders ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 55 for crimes committed in Adelaide, were also arrested. Thus encumbered, the constables started on the long and tedious journey overland to Adelaide. Although several colonists had already accomplished this task, very little was known concerning the best route to be taken. Morgan offered to guide the constables, and they, accepting, were led some distance out of the course. When they discovered their mistake, Morgan refu.sed to budge, and, notwithstanding threats of shooting him or of being left there to starve, he persisted. The hardihood of this man was remarkable. The position of the constables had become desperate, for they possessed barely a day's rations, and had an unknown distance to travel. After entreating and threatening him, they made Morgan fast to a young gumtree by passing his arms around it and locking his wrists with handcuffs, and then pushed on to Adelaide and reported themselves to Governor Hindmarsh, who expressed great horror at the tale. He immediately called a Council, when it was decided to establish a regular police force. A horse was purchased for /, iio, Mr. Inman was appointed Superintendent of Police, and arrangements were made to dispatch him and others back to the prisoner. I-^our clays after being left, Morgan was found alive by the constables. He confessed contrition for his obstinate conduct. His sufferings had been fearful ; he had frantically struggled to snap his shackles, but they cut deeper and deeper into his flesh. At night he had to keep wild dogs off by kicking and tramping around the tree ; by day the flies perched upon his raw wrists, and, when they retired, mosquitoes continued the assault. Morgan was sentenced to transportation for life. Some difficulty was at first experienced in obtaining men to join the regular police force, of which Henry Alford became A No. i. When Governor Gawler arrived he re-organised the staff, increased the number of men, and appointed Major O'Halloran Commissioner of Police. The convicts, in the capacity of bushrangers, continued to afford trouble during subsequent years. Besides the journeys, incidentally mentioned, to Encounter Bay, other trips or unofficial explorations were made during 1837-8. Intending pastoralists and agriculturists who were waiting for land to be allotted them went into the country largely to find places that seemed most promising for their purposes. During the year 1837 the setders visited and named after pioneers Hurtle, Morphett, and McLaren Vales, and reached Mount Barker in the east, Lyndoch Valley in the north-east, and examined the coast of the gulf to a considerable distance in the south. Sheep and cattle soon browsed on the sites of the present suburban towns, and from seven and three-quarter acres tilled in 1837, the area rose to 81 acres in 1838. A journey of considerable importance was made in 1838. Except Captain Sturt, no one had travelled over the country separating settlement in New South Wales and settlement in South Australia, but the demands of the local community quickly interested courageous travellers. Members of a party, under Mr. Joseph Hawden, who started from the former colony on January 26, 1838, were the first of many brave and daring bushmen who traversed this tremendous distance. It was during these journeys through hundreds