Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/9



As we shall occupy the reader's attention at some length in the Introductory View, he may reasonably claim exemption from a long Preface. Our allusions here are confined to two subjects: our Chapters, and our Illustrations.

To have given three hundred successive pages of Journal without a break would have been tolerable to very few, and the less so from some degree of sameness that characterizes Australian scenery and incidents of travel. Mr. McKinlay, indeed, was fortunate in meeting with such weather as greatly dispelled this Australian sameness, and in many parts substituted for scrub, spinifex, and parched ground, the pleasant spectacle of lakes and running streams, waving grass and flowery meadows. Nevertheless, a subdivision of the Journal into Chapters will be found acceptable.