cake; the explorers gave in exchange some fish-hooks and sugar. They followed what they considered the main branch of the creek, but it deceived them; for, travelling along its banks for some time, they found that it split into small channels, which lost themselves in sandy soil. This obliged them to retrace their steps to the last sheet of water they had left behind. To increase the gloom of their prospects, the camel, trembling and exhausted, began to give in. They lightened his load, and explored the creek in another direction, but found that, as in the other case, its waters disappeared in sand, while away to the south stretched dreary plains where no creek or stream was to be found. The camel became so weak that at length he could not rise to his feet, and he was finally shot. Various attempts were made to find a route provided with water, but they proved unsuccessful.

On one occasion Wills, in passing by a black's encampment, was invited by them to stay; he did so, and was very hospitably entertained, being offered a share of a gunyah or hut, and supplied with plenty of fish and cake, as well as a couple of nice fat rats. The latter, which were baked in their skins, he found, he says, most delicious. During night the friendly blacks kept the large fire, beside which he slept, burning brightly that he might not suffer from the cold.

The explorers were, by this time, in deplorable circumstances; they were exhausted in body, and worn and haggard in appearance; their clothes were in rags, and their provisions so reduced that, to eke them out, they resolved to discover the nardoo seed with which the blacks make their rough bread.

The Diary for May the 11th, says: "To-day Mr. Burke and King started down the creek for the blacks' camp, determined to ascertain all particulars about the nardoo seed. . . . I must devise some means for trapping birds and rats, which is a pleasant prospect after our dashing trip to Carpentaria, having to hang about Cooper's Creek, living like the blacks."

Burke and King were not successful in finding the blacks; but some days afterwards when the whole party were engaged in making a final effort to reach Mount Hopeless, the nardoo seed was discovered by King, growing in little tufts close to the ground. The seed, however, did not prove of such value as they expected; for to pick it was a slow and difficult task, and it was no less so to prepare and pound it. Moreover, the nutriment which it afforded was too scanty to be of much advantage to them in their then exhausted condition. The attempt to reach Mount Hopeless failed, and they turned back just as that mountain was about to appear above the horizon; for from that point only fifty miles remained to be traversed in order to reach it. They returned to Cooper's Creek, and Wills was sent back to the depôt to deposit there a notice of their sad condition.

In the meantime, Wright, moving at last from Menindie, met Brahé's party on their return. To give Burke a last chance before they set out for the settled districts, he and Brahé, leaving their

parties behind, made a rapid journey to the depôt on Cooper's Creek; they arrived there on May the 8th, sixteen days after the explorers left it for Mount Hopeless. It seemed to Brahé to be in the same state as when he last saw it; and to put a climax to the misfortunes of this singularly fatal expedition, they quitted the depôt without digging to the chest and finding the paper which Burke had substituted for that left by Brahé.

On his way to the depôt Wills met a number of blacks who were very kind to him; they evidently pitied his famine-stricken appearance. One carried the shovel he had brought with him, and another insisted on taking his bundle; they conducted him to their camp, and supplied him with abundance of nardoo and fish. After leaving the blacks, he travelled on slowly and painfully. At a stony part of the creek he found a number of crows quarrelling about something near the water; it was a large fish of which they had eaten a considerable portion. "Finding it quite fresh and good," he says, “I decided the quarrel by taking it with me; it proved a most valuable addition to my otherwise scanty supper of nardoo porridge." He reached the depôt on May 30th. There was no sign that anyone had been there since the visit of the explorers themselves. He deposited in the chest some journals and a letter, which was to this effect:

Depot Camp, May 30.

"We have been unable to leave the creek. Both camels are dead, and our provisions are gone. Mr. Burke and King are down the lower part of the creek. I am about to return to them, when we shall probably come up this way. We are trying to live the best way we can, like the blacks, but find it hard work. Our clothes are going to pieces fast. Send provisions and clothes as soon as possible.

"W. J. WILLS.

"The depôt party, having left contrary to instructions, has put us in this fix. I have deposited some of my journals here for fear of accidents.

(Signed),

"W. J. W."

He set out to rejoin his companions next day; his frame, enfeebled by sickness and hunger, now began to sink through sheer exhaustion; it was as much as he could do to drag himself across the various little gullies of the creek. He slept at night under the bushes.

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On June the 2nd, he directed his footsteps to the blacks' encampment; he hoped to obtain from them a good breakfast. He was disappointed, for the place was deserted. Having rested awhile," he tells us, "and eaten a few fish-bones, I moved down the creek, hoping by a late march to be able to reach our own camp, but I soon found from my extreme weakness that that would be out of the question; a certain amount of good luck still stuck to me, for on going along by a large water-hole, I was so fortunate as to find a large fish, about a pound and a-half in weight, which was just being choked

by another which he had tried to swallow, but which had stuck in its throat. I soon had a fire lit, and both of the fish cooked and eaten; the large one was in good condition."

Next day he met the blacks, who called out to him as soon as they saw him. "Having with considerable difficulty managed to ascend the sandy path that led to the camp, I was conducted by the chief to a fire, where a large pile of fish were just being cooked in the most approved style. These I imagined to be for the general consumption of the half-a-dozen natives gathered around, but it turned out that they had already had their breakfast. I was expected to dispose of this lot—a task which, to my own astonishment, I soon accomplished, keeping two or three blacks pretty steadily at work extracting bones for me. The fish being disposed of, next came a supply of nardoo cake and water, until I was so full as to be unable to eat any more; when Pitchery (the chief) allowing me a short time to recover myself, fetched a large bowl of the raw nardoo flour, mixed to a thin paste, a most insinuating article, and one that they appear to esteem a great delicacy. I was then invited to stop the night there, but this I declined and proceeded on my way home."

However, he afterwards returned and remained with them four days; when he left them, it was with the intention of bringing his two companions, that all three might live with them in future. Burke and King agreed to this, as it was the only chance that remained of prolonging their lives. With extreme toil they dragged themselves along towards the blacks' camp; on reaching it they met with a cruel disappointment; the place was empty-the friendly blacks had moved elsewhere. Unable to follow them, the explorers took possession of the best hut, and determined to try and live on nardoo. Day by day they grew weaker ; death was evidently stealing on them. Wills says in the Diary (June 20th): "I am completely reduced by the effects of the cold and starvation; King gone out for nardoo; Mr. Burke at home pounding seed; he finds himself getting very weak in the legs. King holds out by far the best; the food seems to agree with him pretty well." Further on he says :— "I cannot understand this nardoo at all; it certainly will not agree with me in any form." And again:-"Unless relief come in some form or other, I cannot possibly last more than a fortnight. It is a great consolation, at least, in this position of ours, to know that we have done all we could, and that our deaths will rather be the result of the mismanagement of others than of any rash acts of our own."

At last, they were forced to admit that, unless they found the blacks, they should die of hunger and exhaustion. Wills was too weak to join in the search, and his companions were unwilling to leave him alone. He, however, urged them to go, saying that it was their only chance. At length they resolved to do so, and left him a supply of water and nardoo to last for eight days. They showed great hesitation and reluctance at the idea of leaving him, and repeatedly desired his candid opinion on the matter. He reiterated his assurance that it was his wish, since to find the blacks was now the sole chance that remained of saving the whole party. He made them bury

his Diary outside the hut, and gave Burke a letter and a watch for his father. The last words he wrote in the Diary are as follows :

"Friday, June 28.

"Clear, cold night; slight breeze from the E.; day beautifully warm and pleasant. Mr. Burke suffers greatly from the cold, and is getting extremely weak; he and King start to-morrow up the creek to look for the blacks; it is the only chance we have of being saved from starvation. I am weaker than ever, although I have a good appetite and relish the nardoo much; but it seems to give us no nutriment, and the birds are so shy as not to be got at. Even if we got a good supply of fish, I doubt whether we could do much work on them and the nardoo alone. Nothing now but the greatest good luck can save any of us; as for myself I may live four or five days if the weather continues warm. My pulse is at forty-eight, and very weak, and my legs and arms are nearly skin and bone; I can only look out, like Mr. Macawber, for something to turn up.' Starvation on nardoo is by no means very unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move oneself; for, as far as appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction. Certainly, fat and sugar would be more to one's taste; in fact, those seem to me to be the great stand-by for one in this extraordinary continent; not that I mean to depreciate the farinaceous food, but the want of sugar and fat in all substances obtainable here is so great that they become almost valueless to us as articles of food without the addition of something else.

His companions sadly bade him farewell; they probably felt a presentiment that they would never again look on him in life. Father Woods thus describes his last moments: "One can imagine his calm tranquillity while daylight faded into evening, like the ebbing away of his own life. His night was passed without any sounds, except his own weak breathing; he may have watched the changing clouds, the fitful breezes, or the stars, as his journal tells us he had done before; their faint light brought some comfort to his glazed eyes, and one can fancy how his whispering sighs would echo through the hut as the weary hours passed on. A few days more -three at the most-and even that sound was gone: poor Wills had passed away. ("Exploration and Discovery of Australia,” vol. ii. chap. 2.) When King returned four days afterwards, he found Wills dead within the hut, and buried him in the sand.

The first day after quitting Wills, Burke travelled on in a very weak condition, suffering great pain in his back and legs. The following morning, when he had journeyed two miles, he said that he could go no further. However, encouraged by King, he made several almost snperhuman efforts, and walked, as King afterwards expressed it," till he dropped." He then threw away all he carried, and dragging himself to some bushes, lay down under them for the night. King shot a crow, and of it and some nardoo they made their supper. It was their last meal together.

Burke, feeling that he had not many hours to live, gave his watch and pocket-book to King, and requested him to remain by his side. till all was over. He wished, he said, to have his pistol (the parting gift of some Australian friends) placed in his right hand, and to be left unburied as he lay. He sank rapidly, and during that cold, lonely night he must have suffered much; he spoke but little. Once he

said to his companion that it was a comfort to him to have a human being by his side. We may well believe it when we think of the inhospitable desert in which he was dying.

Thus he passed the long silent hours of his last night on earth; early morning found him speechless or nearly so; all toil and care were soon to end. About eight o'clock his breath became more laboured, and then grew fainter; the death-dew gathered on his brow; his haggard features became if possible, still more shrunken; and peacefully and gently his chastened spirit passed into eternity.

When, some time afterwards, the friendly blacks gazed upon the dead body of the white men's chief, they wept bitterly and covered it with branches which they pulled from the trees and bushes near at hand.

King was now left alone in the dreary wilderness; he sought long and earnestly for traces of the blacks, subsisting the while on hawks, crows, and nardoo. He at length found the savages. They were very kind to him; and as he gained still further their good will by shooting birds and curing a sick woman, they permitted him to become a member of the tribe. He continued to live thus until he was rescued by a party which was sent out in search of Burke.*

When the news reached Melbourne that the explorers were in all probability lost, various expeditions were promptly organized to ascertain their fate, and, if possible, to afford them succour. Some of those expeditions proceeded by sea to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and discovered Burke's track on the banks of the river Flinders. A land expedition, under the command of Mr. Howitt, found King, as we have said, and liberally rewarded the savages who had been so kind to him.

In accordance with resolutions passed by both Houses of the Victorian Parliament, the remains of Burke and Wills, recovered by Mr. Howitt, were conveyed to Melbourne and honoured with a public funeral; a stately monument was shortly afterwards erected over the spot where they rest in the Melbourne General Cemetery.

We shall conclude this brief account of the celebrated Exploring Expedition of 1860 with the tribute of admiration paid to the memory of its leader by Sir Henry Barkly, who was then Governor of Victoria. In a letter addressed to Major Burke, the explorer's brother, he speaks thus: "This colony, indeed, may well be proud, not merely that such an achievement has been performed, but of the heroism and self-devotion exhibited in its performance; and I am sure that, when the simple narrative of the explorers comes to be read in the mother country, it will be felt that Ireland never sent out a truer or a braver son than Robert O'Hara Burke."

* King's adventures after the death of his leader will be told in a third paper.