It was approaching

taken the first watch over the horses. toward midnight, when Mr. Eyre's watch would expire and he would be relieved by the overseer. The horses in their restlessness had led him some distance from the camp, when the report of a gun interrupted the sighing of the breeze over these desolate wilds. Startled by so unusual an occurrence, Mr. Eyre immediately hastened back to the camp.

'I met the King George's Sound native, Wylie, running towards me, and in great alarm, crying, "Oh, Massa, oh Massa! come here;" but could gain no information from him, as to what had occurred. Upon reaching the encampment, which I did in about five minutes after the shot was fired, I was horror-struck to find my poor overseer weltering in his blood, and in the last agonies of death. Glancing hastily around the camp, I found it deserted by the two younger native boys; whilst the scattered fragments of our baggage, which I left carefully piled up under the oilskin, lay thrown about in wild disorder, and at once revealed the cause of the harrowing scene before me. Upon raising the body of my faithful, but ill-fated follower, I found that he was beyond all human aid. He had been shot through the left breast with a ball. The last convulsions of death were upon him, and he expired almost immediately after our arrival.

"The frightful, the appalling truth now burst upon me, that I was alone in the desert. He who had faithfully served me for many years, who had followed my fortunes in adversity and in prosperity, who had accompanied me in all my wanderings, and whose attachment to me had been his sole inducement to remain with me in this last and, to him, alas! fatal journey, was now no more. For an instant, I was almost tempted to wish that it had been my own fate, instead of his. The horrors of my situation glared upon me with such startling reality as, for an instant, almost to paralyse the mind. At the dead hour of night, in the wildest and most inhospitable wastes of Australia, with a fierce wind raging in unison with the scene of violence before me, I was left with a single native, whose fidelity I could not rely upon, and who, for ought I knew, might be in league with the other two, who, perhaps, were even now lurking about, with a view of taking away my own life, as they had done that of the overseer. Three days had passed away since we left the last water, and it was very doubtful when we might find any more. Six hundred miles of country had to be traversed before I could hope to obtain the slightest aid or assistance of any kind, whilst I knew not that a single drop of water or an ounce of flour had been left by these murderers from a stock that had previously been so small.'

Their small store of flour had indeed been the incentive to this horrible deed. The two natives had taken with them all the flour and water they could carry, and the double-barrelled guns of Mr. Eyre and the overseer, leaving behind them only a brace of pistols and a rifle which had a ball fast in the breech, and was useless for the time. The encampment showed that

they had laid their plan for murdering the overseer over night; but, as the country around was entirely destitute of food, it is most probable that they perished as soon as their stock of flour was exhausted.

'After obtaining possession,' continues Mr. Eyre, of all the remaining arms, useless as they were at the moment, with some ammunition, I made no examination then, but hurried away from the fearful scene, accompanied by the King George's Sound native, to search for the horses, knowing that, if they got away now, no chance whatever would remain of saving our lives. Already the wretched animals had wandered to a considerable distance; and although the night was moonlight, yet the belts of scrub, intersecting the plains, were so numerous and dense that, for a long time, we could not find them. Having succeeded in doing so at last, Wylie and I remained with them, watching them during the remainder of the night; but they were very restless, and gave us a deal of trouble. With an aching heart, and in most painful reflection, I passed this dreadful night, every moment appearing to be protracted to an hour, and it seemed as if the daylight would never appear. About midnight the wind ceased, and it became bitterly cold and frosty. I had nothing on but a shirt and a pair of trousers, and suffered most acutely from the cold. To mental anguish was now added intense bodily pain. Suffering and distress had well-nigh overwhelmed me, and life seemed hardly worth the effort necessary to prolong it. Ages can never efface the horrors of this single night, nor would the wealth of the world tempt me to go through similar ones again.'

With daylight, Mr. Eyre and Wylie prepared to hasten from this dreadful scene. There was not sufficient sand on the surface of the limestone to bury the body of the overseer, and nothing remained but to wrap his blanket around it. The sheep had all been consumed, or perished on the journey. Forty pounds of flour was now their only stock of provision; and, abandoning everything else, save his charts and papers, Mr. Eyre hurried from the spot with his solitary attendant, Wylie. The two natives again appeared before starting, and made efforts to gain over Wylie, but they could not be induced to speak to Mr. Eyre, and, after a short time, they disappeared in the desert.

The two travellers were now obliged to live chiefly on their horses, curing the flesh in the sun, and carrying on a sufficient quantity for some days' consumption. On these occasions, Mr. Eyre, in the midst of such overwhelming troubles, records in his note-book the strange appetite of Wylie for horseflesh. When a horse was killed, he ate several pounds before lying down. During the night he got up almost hourly to resume his feast. He lay on the ground. He roared in agonies of indigestion. He begged to be allowed to rest a day. He was

very bad; too much walk had made him bad; he was curing himself with horseflesh. In the morning he loaded himself, notwithstanding his illness, with choice pieces, and, with tears in his eyes, left behind him all that he could not carry. The singular wall of cliffs, too, retired inland, and they were enabled to gain access to the sea-shore, where they occasionally caught a stinging ray-fish. At length, when human nature threatened to sink under such long-continued fatigue and exposure, and to reach the settlement at King George's Sound, now close at hand, appeared beyond their strength, a whaling barque was sighted off the coast. On perceiving their signals, the commander

Captain Rossiter, of the French whaling-ship Mississippi '— sent a boat for them, and they were received on board with much hospitality. After recruiting themselves here for some weeks, they were again landed, within easy reach of the settlement, where they arrived in July 1841, after an absence of over twelve months from Adelaide.

This immense journey places beyond question the astonishing fact that a seaboard 1,500 miles long, from Spencer Gulf to King George's Sound, does not add one drop of water to the ocean. How the drainage of the immense district to the north of this coast is conducted, remains as yet unknown. Frequent thunder-clouds, rising from the great Southern Ocean, passed over Mr. Eyre's head, and evidently burst before they proceeded many miles inland. At particular points, too, flights of parrots were observed, birds which are rarely seen at a considerable distance from water. From these and other considerations, it is not improbable but that the absolute wastes which Mr. Eyre traversed may extend little beyond the sea-coast, and be succeeded by good and valuable land. For many years the barren results of his coast journey have deterred research in that direction; but recent explorations to the west of the Torrens Basin, to which the course of our narrative will bring beginning to open a more promising tract of country to the colonists of South Australia. At present, however, Mr. Eyre brings us to the extremity of the South Coast, and, rounding Cape Leeuwin, we again come out on the North-West Coast. Here, while we have been following Mr. Eyre, the 'Beagle' has been accumulating some further information for us. Of the immense coast, however, from Perth to Hanover Bay, we have nothing further to add. To the present day it lies almost wholly unknown.

The Beagle,' it will be recollected, received Captain Grey on board at the mouth of the Glenelg, after his encounter with natives, and from the Glenelg we have to follow her still

more to the north, as she takes up the remaining portion of the North-West Coast. Soon after her arrival in the Australasian seas, the command of the Beagle' devolved on Captain Stokes. Of the portion of mainland now examined by this traveller, our curiosity is greatly increased to know more. The country appears a continuation of those rich and picturesque scenes on the banks of the Glenelg, already described by Sir George Grey; but the 'Beagle' allows us so little time to examine them or to discover to what they lead inland, that we must consider even this portion of the North-West Coast as yet awaiting and inviting examination. Captain Stokes' instructions, as commander of the 'Beagle,' applied only to a marine survey of the coast, and his hours on land, which we owe to a love of exploration and to the very great promise which the country held out to him, were necessarily limited by this duty, and by the safety of his vessel. Stolen hours are pleasant; and certainly the hours which Captain Stokes has stolen to explore this portion of the North-West Coast furnish very pleasant reading. We have adventures with crocodiles and alligators, to remind us that we are among the tropics. We go boating up river after river, thrusting aside, for the first time, the overhanging thickets, amid the screaming of cockatoos and the flights of innumerable paroquets, of every imaginable hue. We obtain glimpses leading us to hope that we are about to lift the veil from the mysterious Interior. In King's Sound, the Fitzroy River was discovered, and followed up by a boat's crew of the Beagle' for ninety miles beyond the coast. It was found to pass through a rich alluvial soil, abounding with tropical vegetation, and the country beyond seemed equally promising. Higher up on the coast, the River Adelaide was discovered, and also followed up for about eighty miles inland. But Captain Stokes' most valuable discovery on this coast was the River Victoria, which he followed for 140 miles inland, and quitted with regret. His explorations along the course of this stream led him to regard it as the most promising inlet to the Interior, and, with this view, he most strongly urged the formation of an expedition to start from some point on its banks. At the solicitation of the Royal Geographical Society, Captain Stokes' recommendations were ultimately acted upon by the British Government; and Mr. Gregory's Victoria River Expedition of 1856 is, doubtless, still in the recollection of our readers. Owing to mishap and mismanagement, the Victoria River Expedition has not added much to our knowledge of the Interior; but it may not be uninteresting to refer to it again in its proper place. With the Gulf of Carpentaria, Captain Stokes completed his

survey of this portion of the coast. At the head of the gulf he discovered some considerable streams. The chief of these, the Albert, he traced, by boat, for fifty miles inland, when, finding the channel choked by fallen timber, he proceeded on foot for several miles further through his Plains of Promise. In taking leave of the Beagle,' we have to regret, equally with Captain Stokes, that the safety of his vessel obliged him to relinquish each of these tempting opportunities to obtain an insight into the vast solitudes which lie behind the North-West Coast.*

At present, our narrative takes us back to the city of Adelaide, now hemmed in by Mr. Eyre's gloomy Lake Torrens, and the terrible South Coast which he had just traversed. The settlers of the Adelaide district had abandoned all hope of finding an outlet to the west. What was the nature of the great Interior which lay to the north of them was now the most important inquiry. Mr. Eyre's exploration in that direction had terminated with Mount Hopeless. But Mount Hopeless was situated on their side of Lake Torrens. It was impossible to say what good land might lie on the northern shores of the lake. It was impossible for the colonists to rest satisfied until the centre of the continent was actually reached, and the possibility of an extension in that direction finally ascertained. Captain Sturt had been the most successful of Australian explorers; and Captain Sturt must now settle this question for them. In 1844, he started from Adelaide with a strong and well-equipped party, consisting of sixteen men, the officers of the expedition being Mr. Poole, as second in command and surveyor, Mr. Stuart (now so well known for his late exploits in exploration), as draughtsman, and Mr. Brown, as surgeon.

Desirous to escape altogether from the meshes of Lake Torrens, which had already entangled Mr. Eyre, he left that district on his left hand, and passed up the Murray and the Darling, merely making a descent, at intervals, on the Torrens basin, to ascertain the existence of an eastern arm. On each of these occasions a shore was seen, similar in many respects to

A further attempt has been made, within the past year, to learn something more of this Coast. An exploring expedition, under the command of Mr. F. T. Gregory, landed in Nickol Bay, midway in the immense gap left by Sir George Grey between Swan River and Hanover Bay, and endeavoured to penetrate inland, but was stopped at some distance from the Coast, and obliged to return. It has, however, ascertained the existence of a broad seaboard of excellent agricultural land behind Nickol Bay, and makes it all but certain that the North-West Coast is backed by a dividing range similar to the dividing range of the East Coast.