The Australian explorers/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV.
COLONEL WARBURTON'S JOURNEY ACROSS THE WESTERN INTERIOR.
M'Douall Stuart's crowning feat in exploration was soon turned to good account. The idea of a transcontinental telegraph now passed from the realms of Utopia and became a realized fact. The commercial interests of Australia had been urgently in need of communication with the Indo-European lines already existing, but the great desert of the interior was believed to interpose an impenetrable barrier. Now, at last, this misconception, which had been founded on ignorance, was removed by Stuart, who discovered a belt of good country stretching across the interior and reaching to the Indian Ocean. Along this route, with few deviations, the line runs from the Adelaide extension in the south to Port Darwin in the north. In this most creditable enterprise, which was completed in 1872, South Australia spent £370,000, and rendered excellent service to the exploration, as well as to the commercial interests, of Australia. Here was a new base-line for explorers, intersecting the continent from end to end. This advantage was not long in being put to practical use. In South Australia the question of further exploration began to be agitated as soon as the line was opened. The Government was importuned for means to provide for an expedition to cut through the western interior, starting from the telegraph line at the centre of the continent. No aid was obtained from this quarter; nevertheless, the projected tour of discovery did not fall through, for two private gentlemen, the Hon. Thomas Elder and Mr. W. W. Hughes, now came forward and offered to bear the expense of the expedition. The next important step was the choice of a leader, who was happily found in Colonel P. E. Warburton. This brave man was born in Cheshire, England, in 1818. He was early trained for the military profession, and served in India from 1831 to 1853. About the latter date he came out to South Australia, where he was appointed Commissioner of Police, and subsequently held the position of Commandant of the volunteer forces till 1874. During these later years he had been engaged in several essays in exploration, in which he rendered good service to his country and prepared himself for the perilous, but successful, journey with which his name will ever be associated.
The proper starting-point for the expedition was fixed for Alice Springs, a station on the overland telegraph, situated almost in the centre of Australia; and it was the leader's intention to make for the city of Perth, in the west, by the most direct course that could be found—a purpose which came to be considerably modified under the pressure of a terrible necessity. The rendezvous, 1,120 miles distant from Adelaide, was reached by way of Beltana, along a route now beginning to be pretty well known, and all was prepared for the start by the 10th of April, 1873. The expedition, now first in the line of march, consisted of Colonel Warburton as leader, K Warburton (his son), J. W, Lewis, D. White, two Afghans, and a black boy. The only beasts of burden were camels, which amounted to seventeen in number, and the supply of provisions was calculated to last for six months. The route for a short distance northward kept the line of the telegraph, till the Burt Creek was reached, after which it deflected toward the west. The difficulties which beset this journey began at the beginning and continued to its close, only increasing in severity with terrible consistency. Want of water compelled them again and again to retreat to former encampments^ thus causing a great part of the route to be travelled over two or three times. From this cause the eastern boundary of South Australia had to be crossed three times before permanent progress could be made in the proper course. From first to last the country proved to be a barren waste, without creek or river affording a supply of water. In the earlier part of the journey an occasional oasis was met with containing permanent lakelets, at which the explorers would gladly have lingered to recruit themselves and rest the camels; but this delay meant consumption of the provisions, which it soon became evident were too scanty from the first. Warburton wisely resolved to feel his way as he proceeded through the desert by sending scouts in advance to search for water. This was seldom found, except in extremely sparse wells, which were used by the aborigines, and sometimes indicated by the smoke of their camps, but in hardly a single instance was direct information obtained from the blacks. The native wells in the sand not unusually indicated, rather than contained, water, and had often to be excavated to much greater depth. In this way, for the most part, was the desert crossed. When water was announced, an advance was made one stage further and a search party again sent out. It often happened that no water could lie found by the scouts after the most exhausting search, further progress being thus rendered impossible. In these cases there was no help for it but to change the direction, as far as their object would permit, and seek another tentative route. This was indescribably trying to their spirits, but the other alternative was to perish in the sand. On some few occasions the clouds came to their relief and burst in thunderstorms. Even when only a slight shower fell, a few buckets of water were secured by spreading a tarpaulin on the ground. On the 9th of May a deep glen was found in a range of hills. Here was an excellent supply of water, shaded by basalt rocks, rising to the height of 300 ft. Here, too, the weary wanderers rested for a few days, as also at Waterloo Wells, a little ahead, for which they had to pay a penalty in the permanent loss of four camels, which suddenly decamped. They were tracked for a hundred miles, but never recovered. Hitherto their progress had been slow and discouraging. They had travelled 1,700 miles, but were yet at no great distance from Alice Springs. Nor was the outlook any more encouraging. Day after day it was the same weary journeying over spinifex ridges and sandy valleys, without any indication of the fine country they had hoped to discover; but, to their credit be it said, no one even hinted about giving up the enterprise. By the 17th of August a notable stage in their progress was reached. Warburton ascertained that he could not be more than ten miles distant from the most southern point reached by Mr. A. C. Gregory in 1856. The Colonel ascended a neighbouring hill to see if he could catch a glimpse of Termination Lake, into which Sturt's Creek had been found to empty itself. This salt lake was concealed by a range of sand-hills; but Warburton verified his position, and thus had virtually connected his own survey from the centre with the Gregory discoveries in the north. Advancing slowly, but surely, towards the west, a fine freshwater lake was discovered on the 30th. It abounded in waterfowl, which were more easily shot than recovered, as they had no means of reaching them in the water. From this point onward their troubles began to thicken with ominous rapidity. Eight of the seventeen camels were gone, while the stock of provisions, too, began to appear uncomfortably small, and had to be dealt out with a niggardly hand. It now became evident to the Colonel that the original plan of proceeding to Perth was impracticable, and he resolved to head further to the north, so as to strike the Oakover River and save the expedition. Their troubles were truly most afflicting in this great and terrible wilderness. The heat and toil of travelling wore them out by day, and myriads of black ants deprived them of their sleep at night. They were now living on camels' flesh, dried in the sun, the only sauce being an occasional bird which fell to their guns. By the 2nd of November they had been reduced to dire extremity, both of famine and thirst. The Oakover was estimated to be about 150 miles distant, and it was resolved to make a rush for it, taking their chance of an accidental discovery of water to keep them in life, for it was now a question of mere life and death. Respecting this latter and awfully perilous stage of the journey, it will be better to let Colonel Warburton speak for himself. The following extracts are from the entries in his journal as made during the crisis of his sufferings, when hope was fast giving place to despair:—"We killed our last meat on the 20th October; a large bull camel has, therefore, fed us for three weeks. It must be remembered that we have had no flour, tea, or sugar, neither have we an atom of salt, so we cannot salt our meat. We are seven in all, and are living entirely upon sun-dried slips of meat which are as tasteless and innutritious as a piece of dead bark. … We have abandoned everything but our small supply of water and meat, and each party has a gun. … We are hemmed in on every side: every trial we make fails; and I can now only hope that some one or more of the party may reach water sooner or later. As for myself, I can see no hope of life, for I cannot hold up without food and water. I have given Lewis written instructions to justify his leaving me, should I die, and have made such arrangements as I can for the preservation of my journal and maps.… My party, at least, are now in that state that, unless it please God to save us, we cannot live more than 24 hours. We are at our last drop of water, and the smallest bit of dried meat chokes me. I fear my son must share my fate, as he refuses to leave me. God have mercy upon us, for we are brought very low, and by the time death reaches us we shall not regret exchanging our present misery for that state in which the weary are at rest. We have tried to do our duty, and have been disappointed in all our expectations. I have been in excellent health during the whole journey, and am so still, being merely worn out from want of food and water. Let no self-reproaches afflict any respecting me. I undertook this journey for the benefit of my family, and I was quite equal to it under all the circumstances that could be reasonably anticipated, but difficulties and losses have come upon us so thickly for the last few months that we have not been able to move. Thus, our provisions are gone; but this would not have stopped us could we have found water without such laborious search. The country is terrible. I do not believe men ever traversed so vast an extent of continuous desert." They were, indeed, brought to the last extreme of misery. But man's extremity is God's opportunity. A search party found a good well about twelve miles distant, which supplied all their necessities, and saved their lives. Another fortnight brought the forlorn wanderers to a creek with a good store of water at intervals. This proved to be a tributary of the Oakover, to the banks of which they were thus led by such stages as could be travelled in their deplorably emaciated condition. The outskirts of civilization were all but reached. The pastoral station of De Grey was believed to be only a few days' travelling down the river, and a small detachment was sent to implore succour. The distance was really 170 miles, and three weary weeks had to be spent in hoping against hope till relief arrived. Help did come in abundance, and as speedily as was possible in the circumstances. The toils of the wilderness wanderings were now over; all that remained was a terrible retrospect. It was reckoned they had not travelled less than 4,000 miles, including deviations and retreats when further advance became impracticable through want of water. The result, looked at from an explorer's point of view, was, of course, a flat disappointment. Some had confidently expected to hear of a good pastoral country being discovered in the western interior which would prove a new home to the enterprising squatter, and be depastured by myriads of flocks and herds. Instead of this wished-for discovery Colonel Warburton had to follow in the wake of Captain Sturt, and tell yet another tale of an arid desert with dreary ridges of sand succeeding each other like the waves of the sea—a country of no use to civilized, and very little to savage, man. Yet, even so, a good service had been rendered to the knowledge of Australian geography. Where the truth has to be known it is something even to reach a negative result. If the western interior is a desert, it is a real gain to have this fact ascertained and placed on record. Another question set at rest by this expedition is the incomparable superiority of camels in Australian exploration, in point of endurance and in making long stages without water, A horse requires to be watered every twelve hours, but a camel will go without it for ten or twelve days on a pinch. This was not the first time they had been tried in Australia. Burke and Wills started with more "ships of the desert" than Warburton; but the mismanagement which involved that enterprise in fatal disaster deprived the experiment of a fair chance of success. Warburton's was pre-eminently the camel expedition of Australia. The result justified the means. With all the aid of these invaluable beasts of burden the expedition, indeed, was brought to the very brink of ruin; but without them everyone must inevitably have perished.