Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/610

 higher sense of duty among officials. The emancipist and self-styled patriot party turned savagely on the Governor, and Dr. Wardell and William Wentworth ere long vented their iurj in the columns of the Australian, After this introduction of the Governor, the progresB of discovery during his rule must be alluded to. In 1827, Allan Cmminghara comhined his botanical re- searches with exploration. He traversed with six men the affluents of the Nammoy and the Gwydir, discovered Darling Downs, and returned to his starting-point at the head of the Hunter river. Two years afterwards he went to Moreton Bay by sea; and exploring the som-cesofthe Brisbane river, connected his two expeditions, and named Cunningham's (Pass or) Gap in the cordillera near Darling Downs. Darling selected, for the command of another exploring party, Captain Charles Sturt of H.M. 39th Eegi- ment. With this leader Mr. Hamilton Hume was associated. In a time of drought (1828) they started for the interior, in which Oxley had found marshes and expanse of water. They found a waste of dry polygonum scrub with patches of reeds and a small muddy channel to which the Macquarie had dwindled. An attempt by Sturt to follow its course failed* Hume made excursions, and after much hardship the explorers suddenly came upon a large river, which they named the Darhng. To their horror they found the water salt. They were in sore straits for themselves a,nd their cattle; and the unerring skill of Hume was never more welcome than when he discovered, not far from their camp, a pool of fresh water which relieved tboh- distress. Striking the Darling in long. 145.38 E., lat, 29.37 S., they descended many miles without finding any alteration in the character of the river. They turned northwards, and again encoun- tered the Darhng, salt as before. After four months and a balf they returned, having ascertained that the Macquarie and Castlereagh rivers, and, inferentially, the Nammoy, Gwydir, and the Darling Down rivers, liowed into this new great river, now called the Darling, below the confluence of the rivers converging from the slopes of the cordillera. Sturt was again commissioned in 1829 to explore the more southern rivers. The Lachlan had been essayed va,inly by Oxley. Start so%t Ue ^lurrumbidgee, whose