The Australian Desert

The Australian Desert by Roger Pocock

Roger Pocock's "The Australian Desert" recounts the harsh geological origins of Australia and New Zealand as a leftover fragment of the primeval world, then traces two pioneering expeditions across the continent's deadly interior. The narrative opens with a mythic account of creation: after failed experiments with dragons in sea, air, and land, the Eternal Father populated the southern continents with a small improved hopping dragon that carried its young in a pouch, alongside furry running birds, shadeless trees, and half-invented fish, before submerging that world and leaving only Australia and New Zealand unchanged as relics of the fifth day of creation. English settlement began with convicts deported for minor offenses, who often fled to the bush; one escaped convict in Tasmania reportedly led parties into the wilderness and ate his companions one by one until forced to surrender. After the discovery of gold, free settlers arrived but were too occupied to explore, leaving that task to inexperienced English gentlemen unfamiliar with bushcraft. Edgar John Eyre, a Yorkshireman who became a wealthy sheep-farmer and protector of the black fellows, undertook in 1840 to find a sheep route from South Australia to Western Australia. After a failed northward attempt through salt bogs near Torrens, he set out along the waterless south coast with his foreman Baxter, a servant boy named Wylie, and two other native men, plus nine horses, a pony, six sheep, and nine weeks of rations. The party endured a stretch of one hundred twenty-eight dry miles, lost animals, ate rotten horseflesh, and collected dew with sponges. Two native men deserted, returned starving, then later shot Baxter, plundered the camp, and fled with a gun, hunting Eyre and Wylie before perishing themselves. Wylie eventually found a French ship at anchor, whose English captain fed the survivors for a fortnight. After further suffering, Eyre and Wylie reached Albany in Western Australia, becoming the first to cross from the eastern to the western colonies. Eyre later became governor of Jamaica. The second expedition, organized from Melbourne in 1860, aimed to cross Australia from south to north. Leadership fell to Burke, an Irishman with Hungarian cavalry and Royal Irish Constabulary background serving in the Victorian police, and Wills, a Devon man trained in surveying and astronomy, accompanied by other white men and three Afghans with camels. After establishing a base at Menindie on the Darling River, Burke dismissed two mutinous men and lost his doctor, then hired the settler Wright to guide them toward Cooper's Creek. Wright was sent back for supplies while the party advanced to Cooper's Creek to await him. Wills and a companion scouted ninety miles north to the Stony Desert, a region of quartz and sandstone the explorer Sturt had once reached before returning blind. Wright delayed six weeks before starting back with supplies, prompting Burke, Wills, King, and Gray to push ahead with a horse and six camels, leaving William Brahe in charge at Cooper's Creek with orders to wait for Wright. Burke's party crossed the Stony Desert, reached a lake where they spent Christmas, continued to the Diamantina, and eventually reached salt water at the Gulf of Carpentaria, completing the south-north crossing. On the return, they killed camels for food and ate snakes that disagreed with them. Gray, ill and accused of pilfering, was beaten by Burke and later died, costing the party a day's delay for burial. They reached Cooper's Creek nine hours after Brahe's departure, finding a buried message dated 21 April 1861 explaining that Brahe had left for the Darling with Wright, since one of Brahe's men, Patten, had been unable to walk after a horse-throwing injury. With two exhausted camels, Burke's party could not overtake Brahe's group, so they headed toward a South Australian Mounted Police outpost one hundred fifty miles down Cooper's Creek, leaving a return note buried without marking the tree. Brahe soon returned with Wright's supply train but, per his diary entry of 8 May, found no sign that Burke had visited and left no additional stores. Burke, Wills, and King, reduced to starvation, were sustained by black fellows with fish, a seed called nardoo, and rats, and received firewood from the natives. A second attempt to reach the police outpost failed as the camels died and water ran out. Wills returned alone to Cooper's Creek and found no trace of help, recording that Brahe and Wright had left nothing. Burke died after eating crow and nardoo, foods lacking sugar and fat needed to sustain life. King then left Burke's body, shot crows, and brought them to Wills, who was already dead. Three months later a relief party found King alive among the natives, wasted and barely recognizable as civilized. A pioneer's verdict was that the explorers were not bushmen, and a Mr. Collis and his wife later lived four years in plenty on game and fish at the Innaminka water-hole where Burke had starved.

By Roger Pocock · First published 1912 · Genre: Adventure, Historical Non-Fiction, Exploration Literature · 2,318 words

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A. D. 1860

I

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desert · australia · travel · exploration · geography · nature · landscape · adventure · arid regions · outback · environment · natural history

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