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THITHER!

Na little chamber above the sea

IN

One lay dying, ah, well-a-day! And the ocean prayeth unceasingly

When earth's young creatures are fading away!

The wild bird sang from the green, green wood,
Outpouring its joy in a lonely ear:

"Oh, love is lovely and life is good

In the glory and flush of the blooming year!"

The sweet blue rock-doves made their moan: "Ah wherefore go, and ah wherefore go? Alone, alone, to the world unknown,

From the dear green earth that hath loved you so ?"

The roses unfolded one by one,

And happy creatures with lustrous eyes Gazed through shadows into the sun

At the purple flash of the dragon-flies.

But the lonely, lamenting, chiming sea,
With its prayerful chant and its loud "Amen,"
Kept sighing its vespers dolefully,

As the tides beat in and beat out again.

And its tracks of light looked long and wide
To the lone sad soul that was sick to death;
"O Christ!" he cried, "O Christ, who died,
All nature bloometh and quickeneth,

"While I alone lie faint and prone,

With broken spirit and longing heart, Too weak to travel to worlds unknown, Seeking thy shelter where'er Thou art !"

Down sank the sun, and the wood-doves slept,
Housed were all warm soft-breathing things,
The rose was hidden, and sweet dews wept,
The moon hung high on her silver wings;

All pale were the ocean's tracks of light,
When out of the gloom with a ghostly prow
A boat came glimmering over the night-
Oh, who is this with the radiant brow?

"Arise!" said the Lord, "and sail with me!"
And the faint sad soul came trembling forth
All fresh in the youth of eternity,

And they sailed not south, nor sailed they north,

But into the kingdom of endless bloom.

Do wood-doves call in its forests fair?

Do roses burn in a soft green gloom?

We dream and wonder, we follow not there.

R. M.

THE SUCCESSFUL EXPLORATION OF AUSTRALIA.
ROBERT O'HARA BURKE.

BY MELBOURNENSIS.

PART II. THE RETURN JOURNEY.

THE hearts of Burke and Wills bounded with exultation as they turned triumphantly from the Gulf of Carpentaria to rejoin King and Gray. They had accomplished the great object of their expedition, and that was an ample reward for all the fatigues they had undergone. It now remained to set out on their return homeward. They little imagined what terrible sufferings that return had in store for them. They commenced their journey about the middle of February. During the first weeks heavy rains fell, and made travelling slow and difficult, the camels at times sinking to their knees in the soft soil. Their provisions became greatly reduced, and each one's daily rations consisted of a quarter of a pound of flour, a little dried camel's flesh, and as much portulac* as he could gather. Wills tells us in the diary that on February 21st he shot a pheasant, but was much disappointed at finding him all feathers and claws. They met the camel they had abandoned on the route to Carpentaria, but he had become so thin and weak that they were obliged after some days to leave him behind.

In crossing a creek by moonlight, Gray rode over a large snake. "He did not touch him," says Wills, "and we thought it was a log until he struck it with the stirrup-iron; we then saw that it was an immense snake larger than any that I have ever before seen in a wild state. It measured eight feet four inches in length, and seven inches in girth round the belly; it was nearly the same thickness from the head to within twenty inches of the tail; it then tapered rapidly. . . . * A species of succulent herb or shrub.

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I could detect no poisonous fangs, but there were two distinct rows of teeth in each jaw, and two small claws or nails, about three-eighths of an inch long, one on each side of the vent." Burke ate part of the snake, and was shortly after attacked by dysentery; he recovered, however, after a few days. Gray was the first to get seriously unwell, although his companions for a time thought his illness more pretended than real. Wills found him one morning consuming some of the provisions behind a tree. On the matter being reported to Burke, he called Gray, and gave him, as King afterwards stated, "six or seven slaps on the ear.' But when it was seen that Gray was really sick, all were as kind to him as they could be, and he was allowed to travel strapped on one of the camels.

In various places they came upon their old track, and followed it as far as circumstances would permit. On March 20th, they abandoned part of their baggage, and they endeavoured to eke out their provisions by killing three of their camels. The horse "Billy" was killed on the 10th of April, for he was so reduced from want of food that there appeared little likelihood of his being able to cross the Stony Desert, which they were now approaching.

"As we were running short," says the diary, "of food of every description ourselves, we thought it best to secure his flesh at once. We found it healthy and tender, but without the sightest trace of fat in any portion of the body."

They reached the Stony Desert on April 13th, and travelled through it for two whole days without meeting water. This proved too much for poor Gray, who had been suffering very severely for some time back. On the morning of the 16th, as they were about to start, the first of the attacks that immediately preceded his death, came on. He managed to travel seven miles on the back of a camel in such a state that he could not utter a word distinctly. He then became unable to proceed further. Halting, and camping near a swamp, his companions did what they could to relieve his sufferings. On the evening of that day he became speechless. The others, before lying down to sleep, covered him carefully to protect him from the night air, and next morning found him dead. They dug him a grave in the desert, and remained by the spot for the day. That delay, as the sequel will show, cost the lives of Burke and Wills.

Four days after Gray's death they reached Cooper's Creek. The nearer they approached the depôt, the more intense became their expectation and the more earnest their efforts to reach the friends they had left there some months before. On April 21st, enfeebled as they were by hunger and fatigue, they travelled thirty miles, Burke riding one of the two camels that remained, and Wills and King the other. Burke, who was a little in advance, cried out several times: "I see their tents ahead!" and called aloud the names of some of the men; but on reaching the depôt they found it deserted. They shouted, but no welcoming cry answered them; they searched to see if the party had shifted to another part of the creek, but were at length forced to admit the terrible conviction that they were abandoned, and left to die of starvation in the wilderness. It is simply impossible to

realise their feelings when the truth in its stern reality was brought home to their minds. Exhausted by famine and the severest bodily exertion, they lay for some time utterly prostrated, under the withering effect of the disappointment. At length, rousing themselves, they looked through the depôt and found a tree, marked, "Dig three feet westward." They hastily did so, and came upon a chest which contained a supply of provisions and a paper enclosed within a bottle. The letter, which was read aloud by Burke, stated that Brahé's party had left for the Darling on the morning of April 21st, the very day they had themselves arrived at the depôt. This gave additional bitterness to their disappointment. If they had arrived but seven hours sooner they would have been saved. Now what were they to do? Their camels, after the extraordinary efforts made that day, could not travel another mile, and "it was as much as one of themselves could do," King afterwards said, "to crawl to the side of the creek for a draught of water." They could not entertain even a faint hope of overtaking Brahé's party, the men and cattle of which were described in the writing left behind as being, on the whole, well and strong. The description was really inaccurate; the horses and camels were not "in good working condition," as the paper stated, and not one of the men was quite well." So true was this that the retiring party made a very short stage that day, and had encamped for the night within fourteen miles of the depôt. All this, however, was hidden from the explorers; and after recruiting their strength with the good supply of provisions left in the chest, they set out for the nearest settled district, which was about 150 miles distant. It was an out-settlement of the colony of South Australia, situated near Mount Hopeless. Before departing from the depôt, Burke wrote and placed in the chest the following statement:

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"The return party from Carpentaria, consisting of myself, Wills, and King (Gray dead), arrived here last night, and found that the depot party had only started on the same day. We proceed on to-morrow slowly down the creek towards Adelaide by Mount Hopeless, and shall endeavour to follow Gregory's* track; but we are very weak. The two camels are done up, and we shall not be able to travel faster than four or five miles a day. Gray died on the road from exhaustion and fatigue. We have all suffered much from hunger. The provisions left here will, I think, restore our strength. We have discovered a practical route to Carpentaria, the chief portion of which lies on the 140° E. long. There is some good country between this and the Stony Desert; from there to the tropics the country is dry and stony; between the tropics and Carpentaria a considerable portion is rangy (i. e. hilly), but is well watered and richly grassed. We reached the shores of Carpentaria on the 11th of February, 1861. Greatly disappointed at finding the party here gone.

"April 22, 1861.

(Signed),

"ROBERT O'HARA BURKE, Leader.

"P. S.-The camels cannot travel, and we cannot walk, or we should follow the other party. We shall move very slowly down the creek."

* A former explorer.

When depositing this paper, he committed the fatal mistake of not altering the inscription on the tree, and left behind no outward sign that the place had been disturbed. Before proceeding to relate what afterwards befel them, it will be well to say a few words on the reasons why Brahé abandoned the depôt.

Being commanded by Burke to await Wright's arrival, Brahé first employed his men in erecting a stockade and providing for the accommodation of his horses and camels. Then the blacks became quarrelsome, and the party were obliged to keep within the depôt. Scurvy broke out, and Patten in particular was reduced to a deplorable state. Every day found them anxiously expecting Wright. Four months passed, and still he appeared not; he was, in fact, frittering away his time at Menindie on frivolous pretexts. Patten earnestly entreated them to return to the Darling that he might obtain medical assistance. His entreaties, united with fears for their own safety, for their provisions were rapidly lessening, brought them to the determination of leaving the depôt on the 21st of April. There seemed to them, they afterwards alleged, to be every probability that Burke's party was lost.

Burke, Wills, and King, on the second day after their arrival at the depôt, moved slowly down the creek towards the west. The diary for that day says: "We find the change of diet already making a great improvement in our spirits and strength. The weather is delightful, the days agreeably warm, but the nights very chilly; the latter is more noticeable from our deficiency in clothing, the depôt party having taken all the reserve things back with them to the Darling."

Next day they were fortunate enough to obtain 12 lbs. of fish from the blacks in exchange for a few straps and matches. Fresh and comparatively abundant food, and the rest afforded by their slow travelling were gradually re-establishing their strength, and Wills declared that in less than a week they should be fit to undergo any fatigue.

The first misfortune was the loss of one of their camels. Starting at 5 a. m., on April 28th, they had travelled but a mile, when the camel Linda "got bogged by the side of a water-hole;" they tried in vain every means in their power to get him out. "All the ground beneath the surface was a bottomless quicksand, through which the beast sank too rapidly for us to get bushes or timber fairly beneath him, and being of a very sluggish, stupid nature, he never could be got to make sufficiently strenuous efforts towards extricating himself. In the evening, as a last chance, we let the water in from the creek, so as to buoy him up and at the same time soften the ground about his legs, but it was of no avail; the brute lay quietly in it as if he quite enjoyed his position" (Diary). They shot him next day and secured as much of his flesh as they could get at; they then loaded their remaining camel with the most necessary and useful articles, and carrying each a small amount of bedding and clothing, they continued their way down the creek. On the 2nd of May, they met a number of blacks, who furnished them with a liberal supply of fish and coarse

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