The Australian explorers/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
MR. ERNEST GILES'S EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
Mr. Ernest Giles is a native of Bristol, in England. As soon as his education was finished he rejoined his father and family, who had preceded him to Australia. He very early developed a passion for exploration, and gained valuable experience in connection with various expeditions which he served in a subordinate capacity. His own fame as an explorer rests securely on the following enterprises:—
I.
Shortly after the construction of the Port Darwin telegraph, Mr. Giles made a persevering attempt to lead a small party from Chambers's Pillar to the sources of the Murchison River. The expenses were provided partly by himself and partly by Baron Von Mueller, of Melbourne. The party consisted of Messrs. Giles, Carmichael, and A. Robinson, with fifteen horses and one dog. The start was made about the middle of August, 1872. For the early part of the journey the River Finke was followed, but it led them into a rugged, mountainous country-, in which travelling was difficult. The scenery was often charming, as one glen after another was explored. Palm-Tree Glen, in particular, called forth unceasing admiration on account of the multitude of wild flowers which were "born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air." "I collected today," says Mr. Giles, "and during the other days since we have been in this glen, a number of most beautiful flowers, which grow in profusion in this otherwise desolate glen. I am literally surrounded by fair flowers of many a changing hue. Why Nature should scatter such floral gems in such a sterile region is difficult to understand; but such a variety of lovely flowers of every colour and perfume I have never met with previously. They alone would have induced me to name this the Glen of Flowers, but having found in it also so many of the stately palm-trees, I have called it the Glen of Palms." During a further advance among the outlying spurs of the M'Donnell Ranges, the Finke was left, or lost, and laborious search had often to be made for water. The mountains were high, but no creek was found with a longer course than twelve miles. The peaks often assumed strange and fantastic shapes, as the explorers have indicated by such names as Mount Peculiar, Haast's Bluff, &c. The following quotation from the journal shows how they were straitened at this time through want of water. After finding a little in the hollow of a rock, just sufficient to save life, Mr. Giles says:—"It was necessary to try to discover more water if possible, so, after breakfast, I walked away, but, after travelling up gullies and gorges, hills and valleys, I had to return quite unsuccessful, and I can only conclude that this water was permitted by a kind Providence to remain here in this lovely spot for my especial benefit.… I have, in gratitude, called it Mount Udor, as being the only one in this region where a drop of that requisite element was to be obtained. And when I left the udor had departed also." This incident occurred at the twenty-first camp from Chambers's Pillar. From this point a persevering, but unsuccessful, effort was made to strike out west in the direction of a chain named Ehrenberg's Mountain. Want of water again forced the party back on Mount Udor. A more southerly route led to the important discovery of a great saltwater lake, which was called Amadeus, after the then King of Spain, son of Victor Emanuel. Beyond this long, but comparatively narrow, sheet of water, a conspicuous mountain, named Olga, specially attracted the attention of Mr. Giles, who was anxious to reach it by rounding the lake. But this labour was prevented by an incident which, unhappily, caused the purpose of the expedition to collapse. Robinson had been seized with home-sickness, and the infection reached Carmichael, who obstinately refused to proceed any further. Giles tried the effect of moral >suasion, which was the only weapon available for a volunteer. He pleaded the large supply of provisions, the importance of the enterprise, and the ignominy of turning back. But it was to no purpose. Carmichael had made up his mind and would listen to no arguments. Giles was now compelled to direct his march back to the telegraph line, "a baffled and beaten man." During this inglorious retreat the course lay by the Peterman, the Palmer, and the Finke rivers, and by this route the original camp No. 1 was reached. Here is the conclusion of the whole matter in Mr. Giles's own words:—"My expedition was over. I had failed in my object (to penetrate to the sources of the Murchison River) certainly, but not through any fault of mine, as I think any impartial reader of my journal will admit.… We travelled to the eastward along the course of the River Finke (homeward), and passed a few miles to the south of Chambers's Pillar, which had been my starting-point. I had left it but twelve weeks and four days to the time I re-sighted it, and during that interval I had traversed and laid down about a thousand miles of country. My expedition thus early ends. Had I been fortunate enough to have fallen upon a good, or even fair, line of country, the distance I actually' travelled would have taken me across the continent."
II.
A second attempt was made by the same explorer shortly after his return from the first. The funds being provided by the liberality of the Victorian colonists, a light party, consisting of Messrs. Giles, Tietkens, Gibson, and Andrews, with twenty-four horses, were despatched for the purpose of crossing the western half of Australia. They left the telegraph road at the junction of the Stevenson and Alberga creeks on the 4th of August, 1873. The latter was followed for some distance westward, after which, by a short cross-country route to the north, the Hamilton River was reached, and taken as a guide so far as was practicable. This journey led to the discovery of four remarkable mountain-chains. The first of these was named Anthony Range. From one of the summits they beheld a sea of mountains, countless in number, many of which presented the most comically fantastic shapes and forms which the imagination can conceive. Ayer's Range was next reached, and an equally commanding view obtained from one of its heights. The next was the Musgrave Range, occupying a central position in a far-reaching expanse of good country. Here the natives were encountered in a hostile attitude, but were beaten off by the superior arms of four white men. After a journey of 400 miles they reached Mt. Olga, which had been sighted on the former expedition. In this neighbourhood also, they found the tracks of Mr. Gosse, a contemporary explorer, which led to a deviation from the proposed route. In Cavanagh's Range a depôt was established, as a basis for tentative explorations in a forbidding tract of country. About 110 miles from this centre they made a welcome discovery of a waterfall of 150 feet, sending forth a musical roar as it fell, and scattering around a plentiful shower of spray. This gladdening apparition in the desert received the name of the Alice Falls. The country in the immediate neighbourhood was also well grassed. This place has doubtless a future in store for it. Turning more to the north, in the direction of a broken country, another splendid range, named the Rawlinson, was discovered. It extended to 60 miles in length, with a breadth of live or six. The peaks were remarkably pointed and jagged. From this position an attempt was made to strike out in a north-westerly direction, but bad fortune compelled them to return after Mt. Destruction had been reached. Four of the horses had been lost in a journey of ninety miles; water was not to be found; the natives were troublesome; and the eye could discern nothing ahead but spinifex desert and rolling sand-hills. A return to the Rawlinson Range was, therefore, imperative. Having again rested for a little, another determined effort was made to force a passage due west across the interior and strike the outposts of settlement in Western Australia. All was done that man could do, but impossibilities are not to be accomplished. The western Hanks of the Rawlinson Range faded away into a barren and waterless desert. Giles and Gibson had, as a gigantic effort of perseverance, penetrated 98 miles into this inhospitable waste. But no further could they go. Here, on the 23rd of April, the utmost bourne of the expedition was reached. One of the two horses here knocked up and died. This was the last time Gibson was seen. Giles did his utmost to bring him help, but he was never found. His bones lie somewhere in that awful wilderness, which to this day bears his name. When the furthest point was reached better fortune seemed to loom in the distance. Another range of lofty mountains was descried athwart the western horizon, which he called the Alfred and Marie, after the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. They might as well have been in the moon so far as Mr. Giles was concerned in his now pitiable plight. His own reflections were deplorably bitter:—"The hills bounding the western horizon were between thirty and forty miles away, and it was with extreme regret that I was compelled to relinquish a further attempt to reach them. Oh, how ardently I longed for a camel; how ardently I gazed upon the scene! At this moment I would even my jewel eternal have sold for power to span that gulf that lay between. But it could not be; situated as I was, I was compelled to retreat, and the sooner the better." Such was his destiny. After almost twelve months' wanderings in the wilderness, three of the four explorers escaped with their lives, and reached the central telegraph line on the 13th of July.
III.
Such battling with relentless fortune would have extinguished the spirit of adventure in most men. In the case of Mr. Giles it fanned it into a brighter flame. Refusing to be baffled, his noble perseverance was at length rewarded with a double journey across the western half of the continent. This expedition was fitted out by Sir Thomas Elder, of Adelaide, who supplied him with nineteen camels and provisions for eighteen months. The party consisted of Messrs. Giles, Tietkens, Young, A. Ross, P. Nicholls, Selah (an Afghan), and a black boy. The route proposed was from Youldah to Perth, and the start was made on the 27th July, 1875. This, though a successful, was a very trying journey. They crossed desert after desert for a distance of 1,500 miles. On one occasion they were reduced to the last extremity of thirst, and saved from perishing by the happy discovery of a spring in the Great Victoria Desert, 600 miles from the out-settlements of Western Australia. They reached Perth on the 10th November, having travelled a distance of 2,575 miles in about five months. The following is Mr. Giles's summary of the journey:—"The expedition has been successful, yet the country traversed for more than a thousand miles in a straight line was simply an undulating bed of dense scrub, except between the 125th and 127th meridians, the latitude being nearly the 80th parallel. Here an arm of the Great Southern Plain ran up and crossed our track, which, though grassy, was quite waterless. The waters were, indeed, few and far between throughout. On one occasion, a stretch of desert was encountered in which no water was obtainable for 825 miles, which only the marvellous sustaining powers of Mr. Elder's all-enduring beasts enabled us to cross. The next desert was only 180 miles to a mass of granite, where I saw natives for the first time on the expedition. They attacked us there, but we managed to drive them off. Mount Churchman was now only 160 miles distant, and we found water again before reaching it. We struck in at Toora, an out-station, where the shepherd was very hospitable. At other homesteads we were most kindly welcomed." By another journey, in a reverse direction, across the western interior, Mr. Giles returned to the central telegraph, which for so long had formed his base of operations. Leaving Perth on the 13th of January, 1876, he pushed north, and struck the Ashburton River, thence passed through 150 miles of desert, and from the opposite side reached the Alfred and Marie Range, from which he had been so piteously thrust back in 1873. He soon after reached the Rawlinson Range, which he had discovered on that same expedition. Being now in a known country, he passed safely through it, and reached the Peak telegraph station on the 23rd of August, 1876. His journey thence to Adelaide was ordinary travel in the Australian bush.