The Australian explorers/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
MR. A. C. GREGORY'S EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH-WEST INTERIOR.
The part of the continent which shall next engage our attention is the north-west interior. Up to this period of our history very little had been known of this quarter, except along the seaboard and, in sparse places, for a few miles inland. The Victoria had been discovered in 1840 by Captain Stokes, who described it as a rival to the Murray, and, moreover, sailed up its channel for 50 miles without reaching the head of the navigation. By this waterway it was thought possible to reach the north-western interior, in which some traces of Leichhardt might be met with. The conduct of this expedition was entrusted to Mr. A. C. Gregory, a very capable explorer, and a man of scientific attainments. His party numbered eighteen persons, including his brother, Mr. H. Gregory, Mr. Wilson, geologist, and the now famous Baron Von Mueller as botanist. The party took with them 50 horses and 200 sheep. The Torn Tough and the Monarch landed the expedition on the Plains of Promise, near the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the 24th September, 1855. The Monarch then returned to Moreton Bay, while the Tom Tough sailed round to the Victoria, having received orders to wait for the rest of the party, who were to proceed overland. In six days they made the Macadam Range, and in eight more came on to the Fitzmaurice River. At this camp the horses, which had already been greatly reduced in number, were bitten by alligators, and three of them died. On reaching the Victoria the Torn Tough was not to be seen, as she had been driven ashore elsewhere and had sustained severe injury. On the 8rd of January, 1856, Mr. Gregory started with eight men and followed up the Victoria for 100 miles. In latitude 16° 26' S. it split into two branches, each of which was in succession traced up to the vanishing point. The explorers then struck forth into the desert, proceeding on a southerly course. A journey of 300 miles brought them, on the 22nd of February, to a promising creek, to which they gave the name of Sturt, in memory of the eminent explorer. To their intense disappointment, this clue also failed them, for Sturt's Creek finally resolved itself into a sheet of salt water, to which they gave the appropriate designation of Lake Termination. Two mountains in this neighbourhood were called Mount Mueller and Mount Wilson, after the botanist and the geologist of the expedition. Once more the terrible salt desert lay before the baffled explorers. "Nothing," says the leader, "could have been more forbidding than the long, straight lines of drift-sand which, having nearly an east and west direction, rose beyond each other like the waves of the sea; and though the red glare of the sand was partially concealed by a scanty growth of spinifex, the reflection from its surface caused the passing clouds to be coloured a deep purple. We had long passed the limit to which the tropical rains of the north-west coast extend, and the country south of 19° seemed only to be visited by occasional thunderstorms. Thus for a few miles the grass would be fresh and green, then there would be a long interval of dry, parched country, where no rain appeared to have fallen for a twelve-month. The channel of the creek also decreased in size, and the frequent occurrence of salicornia indicated the saline nature of the soil; the water became brackish, then salt, and finally spread out and terminated in the dry bed of a salt lake, a mile in diameter, which communicated with a second, of larger size, nine miles long and five wide. Though now quite dry, there were marks of water having stood for considerable periods, of from 10 to 15 feet deep, as the shells of mussels in their natural position were abundant more than a mile from the ordinary bank of the lake, showing that a large tract of country is sometimes inundated. As the mussels are a species which live in fresh water, it is evident that at such times the lake is not salt, but it would appear that as the waters evaporate and recede they become saline, as the shells found within the limits of the lake were of other species which affect brackish or salt water." One more attempt to make for the south proved abortive, and, with many regrets, Gregory returned to the depôt, after having penetrated within 730 miles of Sturt's most advanced camp towards the centre of Australia.
Falling back upon alternative instructions, the leader now left the Victoria, and, making his way across Arnheim's Land, reached the River Roper. The track of Leichhardt round the southern shores of the Gulf was followed for the most part. The Plains of Promise were crossed, but Gregory scarcely agreed with Stokes in his unqualified praise of this country. From the Albert River he resolved to seek for a better track to Moreton Bay than Leichhardt's. The Flinders was reached on the 8th of September, between which river and the Gilbert some good country was discovered. The latter was traced for 180 miles of its course. The Burdekin was reached by the 16th of October, and a fortnight later its junction with the Suttor. Gregory traced the Belyando to 22°, thus connecting the routes of Mitchell and Leichhardt with his own. Passing the Mackenzie and the Comet, the Dawson River was reached by the 10th of November. The course was then made to Brisbane through the Burnett district, a journey of 400 miles. The parties in this expedition had been absent sixteen months from the haunts of civilization. They had travelled 2,000 miles by sea and 5,000 by land.