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Updated: June 29, 2025
Of Sturt's existence and occupation during this dreary period little can be said. He tried in every direction, until convinced of the uselessness of so doing, sometimes encouraged and led on by shallow pools in some fragmentary creek bed, at others, seeing nothing before him but hopeless aridity.
I should like to go to it, but can find no water. I have named it Mount Browne, after Mr. J.H. Browne, of Port Gawler, my companion in Captain Sturt's expedition. I dare not risk the horses another night without water, the grass is so very dry; had there been green grass, I would not have hesitated a moment.
To the first of these plans were many objections; amongst the principal ones, were, the very unfavourable accounts given both by Captain Sturt, and Major Mitchell, of the country to the west of the Darling River the fact of Captain Sturt's having found the waters of that river salt during a continued ride of many days the numerous tribes of natives likely to be met with, and the very small party I should have with me; lastly, the course of the river itself, which trending so much to the eastward, would take us from, rather than towards the centre of this Continent.
Possibly this latter course may be the most desirable and most feasible to accomplish, as the telegraph stations, taking either Watson's Creek or Daly Waters, are not more than 300 miles from the known water supply on Sturt's Creek, and, supposing you do this successfully, the remaining distance down the telegraph line to Port Darwin is a mere bagatelle, provided an arrangement can be made with the South Australian Government to have a supply of provisions at Daly Waters.
On the 21st December, they arrived at the camp of the relief party, under Piesse, at Williorara, and Sturt's last expedition came to an end. As he has often been termed the father of Australian exploration, it may be as well to look back on the result of his life-long labours.
The emus, with outstretched necks, gasping for breath, searched the channels of the rivers for water, in vain; and the native dog, so thin that he could hardly walk, seemed to implore some merciful hand to dispatch him." Such was Sturt's description of the state of the country.
After this I undertook to conduct an exploration north-east from our colony to Sturt's Creek, where Mr. A. Gregory came down about 1855, and down the Victoria River. This fell to the ground; but our present Governor, Mr. Weld, had a great idea that we should organize an expedition to come to this colony overland along the coast along the course which was previously taken by Mr.
Still we may form an idea of the occasional violence of the heat in the interior of New Holland, from Captain Sturt's account of his expedition across the parched-up marshes of the Macquarie River, where the sugar which his men carried in their canisters was melted, and all their dogs destroyed.
The Murray itself is navigable for steam-vessels for many hundred miles, and probably it will not be very long before these modern inventions are introduced upon its waters. For the account of this voyage, see Sturt's Expeditions in Australia, vol. ii. pp. 72-221.
I have reason to remember that I quoted Sturt's account of the Old Man Plain as a desert solitude of the most hopeless and forbidding character. But, as I pointed out, settlement had crept over that inhospitable tract, and the Old Man Plain had become a pastoral paradise, with a possible future which no man could conjecture.
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