Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/27

 also despatched another exploring party, which, in an independent track of their own, proceeded in parallel steps somewhat to the west of McKinlay. This was the expedition under Stuart, and the third which that veteran explorer had led across Australia. Stuart took the path that he himself had discovered, and that, after so many crossings and recrossings, he may be said to have already beaten to his own use.

Stuart's expeditions mark an era in Australian discovery. All that activity of the last two or three years to which we have alluded, and which has made us now almost as familiar with central as with sea-coast Australia, is really due to him and to the success and importance of his earlier journeys. Commencing in the year 1858 by making a comparatively short expedition to the north-west of the colony, he made known, for the first time, that a very extensive country suitable for colonization existed in that direction, diversified with numerous lakes and running creeks, and comprising millions of acres of land available and ready for pastoral occupation. These unexpected results supplied a timely counterbalance to accounts of a very different tendency received from Gregory, who, in the very same year, had descended upon the colony from its opposite or north-east corner, in following the course of the Victoria or Barcoo into the Cooper. This considerable