Burke and Wills, and Lewis and Clark

delivered at the Chicago Literary Club

April 10, 2006

Francis H.  Straus II

 

 

        In the mid-nineteenth century, one hundred years after Australia began to be a prison colony for Great Britain, there were three cities that developed on the southern and eastern shore; they all had good harbors:  Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.  Each wished to grow and become the leading commercial center of the growing country.  To succeed in this each had to develop and maintain their harbor and organize exploratory expeditions which would associate each of them with a large inland expanse of the continent. Sydney chose to explore north up the east coast in the 1840's.  In 1858 Gregory started from Brisbane, halfway up the east coast, exploring straight west to Cooper Creek, a fresh water area, then south across rocky desert to Mt. Hopeless, then on south to Adelaide.   Mount Hopeless was named by trekkers from Adelaide in 1840, as the furthest north they could reach coming from the south.  Gregory's exploration still left 1,300 kilometers of unknown country north of Cooper Creek, extending to the body of water on the north shore of Australia, the Gulf of Carpentaria.

        Sailing ships bringing news, goods and new colonists from Europe had  to sail half way around the world and far to the south to reach any of these three potential commercial cities in Australia.  Both Adelaide and Melbourne conceived the idea that if they could explore north across the continent and then could build a telegraph line across the mountains and desert expanse, news would then be delivered much more easily and quickly from a northern port to the southern city.  This would allow that city to be one jump ahead hearing the latest news; it could then sell such information to the other cities.  This would allow this information source to become the greatest commercial center in Australia.

        Adelaide was fortunate to have attracted a small young Scotsman named John Stuart.  Both his parents died when he was twelve years old.  He was a loner, and went through school finishing as a civil engineer, then going off to Australia by himself.  He lived in a tent and tried sheep farming, surveying, and mapping land for new settlers.  In 1844 he joined  the exploratory party of Charles Sturt heading north of Adelaide toward Cooper Creek.  Little Stuart showed great stamina and resourcefulness and ended up being appointed the chief surveyor.  Next, two wealthy Adelaide businessmen hired him to find agricultural lands and they supported his many exploratory expeditions to the north.  Stuart did not believe in big expeditions with many wagons and heavy loads  of supplies.   He moved fast with a few horses, one or two other Europeans, and an aboriginal guide. 

In 1858 he traveled north through the Flinders range and salt lakes reaching sheer rock walls guarding the desert beyond.  He continued on northward over these walls with six horses, two companions, one month of food supplies, and a compass, looking for freshwater.  The indigenous population kept saying water was five "sleeps" away.  Many days later in the bleak, barren, desolate land they came to a small fresh water course, now called Chambers Creek.  After rains and floods they went further north into hot bleached stoney plains, called Coober pedy, the site of present day black opal mines.  Even now it is too hot to live on the surface and miners must live underground.  He continued further north, stopping short of Alice Springs in the very middle of Australia.  When Stuart got back to the south coast, his friends said all that was left of him was his voice as he was so thin.  Yet he had accomplished a lot, keeping a good journal and only using a compass to set his route.  Once he returned he began to plan his next northern trip. 

        In the summer of 1859 Adelaide tried to interest Sydney and Melbourne in covering some of the cost of sending Mr. Stuart north again to get all the way across the continent.  Neither was interested in helping Adelaide set the path and gain the spoils.  Then Adelaide business interests offered a prize of two thousand pounds to anyone succeeding in crossing the continent west of 143rd degree of east longitude, sufficiently far west to be of benefit to Adelaide and not much help for either of the  two cities which were further east. The one thing this did was to awaken Melbourne's realization that Adelaide was well underway in the aim of becoming the most important Australian city.


        Melbourne businessmen gathered to form the Royal Society of Victoria with a six thousand pound fund to support exploration of central and northern Australia.  An exploration committee of seventeen members was appointed to choose an expedition leader.  No one on the committee had any exploration experience and few had any scientific knowledge.  No proven explorers were available.  Stuart was committed to AdelaideLeichhardt had disappeared inland eleven years before.  Sturt had returned to England.  Gregory had become surveyor-general of Queensland.  The committee advertised locally hoping to attract a well born individual who had little connection with Adelaide or Sydney.  Fifteen men responded to the advertisement, only four with any experience in adventurous travel, many being unrealistic dreamers or military men who thought the only important thing was managing the people in the traveling group, not all the other elements which would determine the success or failure of an expedition.  Within the exploration committee there was political infighting, indecision and too much drinking.  By April 1860 the Royal Society of Victoria had no leader-designate, and no mapped out route.  But the trained camels coming from India to help cross the dry desert were on their way to Melbourne.  In June twenty camels, four Indian Sepoy camel handlers and Mr. Landells, the purchaser and leader of the camels for the expedition, came ashore and marched triumphantly through downtown Melbourne.  The committee realized that selection of an expedition leader was now urgent.

     The short list of possible expedition leaders included Robert O'Hara Burke, a former Austrian army officer who had been police chief in several towns near Melbourne.  Burke was the second son of a Galway Irish landowning family.  At twenty years of age he became a cadet in the Seventh Hussars in the Austrian army.  He was promoted to be an officer and enjoyed youthful indulgences when on leave- gambling, hunting, dancing and chasing women.  At twenty-seven he was on the brink of a successful career when he went absent without leave because of extensive gambling debts.  The Austrian army allowed him to resign instead of facing a court marshal and prison.  He went back to Ireland, working briefly for the county Kildare police and the Dublin police.

    In 1853, aged thirty three, he immigrated to Australia landing in Melbourne, and joined the nearby gold rush which he soon gave up as too hard work.  He went back to police work in nearby towns.  His frequent activity was to sit in his outdoor bathtub wearing his police helmet over his unkempt black hair and beard, while filling out police reports.  Then he would jump out of the water, dress and take long walks or chop wood for exercise.  He really wanted to make an impression on the world as had his younger brother who had shown heroic courage and bravery in an early battle of the Crimean War.   A rich Irish railroad businessman befriended Burke thinking he personified masculine energy and was convinced that he should apply for the position of exploration leader offered by the Royal Society.  Burke had no exploration experience, was not a surveyor, or a scientist, and had a reputation of always losing his way and getting to his journey's end hours late.  The railroad man introduced Burke to much of Melbourne's higher society and Burke moved to Melbourne in order to become a candidate for expedition leader.  He was personable but impulsive and headstrong without the persistence and eye for detail found in successful explorers.

  Tempsky
, the other main candidate, had fought blacks, whites, and redskins in North American.  He started a strenuous exercise program and studied astronomical formulas while Burke was sitting in the Melbourne Club bar making friends or gambling which raised good sized debts  but made more friends.  The exploration committee of the Royal Society in June of 1860 chose Burke as the expedition leader.

       Now in July 1860 many bush men, who claimed they could work with minimal food and deal effectively with the most difficult aborigines, applied to join the expedition.  Little attention was paid to these abilities.  Burke ignored them and chose friends from Ireland and Melbourne, none of whom were knowledgeable explorers. 


        The next question was what route to follow and the Royal Society was quite vague in its directions. It suggested a route north to Cooper Creek where a depot of stores and provisions was to be left.  The expedition was then to continue north to the Gulf of Carpentaria staying east of Stuart's track north from Adelaide and west of the eastern lands explored by Gregory from Brisbane in 1855-56.  The Melbourne press was very disheartened by the selection of Burke, by the lack of experienced participants, and by the vague expedition route.   There were predictions of disaster with loss of lives.

   The Melbourne expedition was to set out for the north on August 20th, 1860, already several months late which meant wasting the best weather.  It began in a crowded park with camels, horses, and wagons everywhere.  Horses do not like camels and tend to act up and run away when camels come into view or their aroma comes to them.  The park was crowded with fifteen thousand Melbourne citizen spectators so that the expedition members could not pack and organize efficiently.  The third in command  was William Wills, a twenty six year old scientist who really wanted to record route, animals, and plants and geology encountered along the way.  He was born in Devon, England, was quiet and serious, assisted his physician father and then turned to mathematics and physics in school.  The lure of increased income caused the family to immigrate to Australia where Wills worked as a shepherd and fell in love with the bush.  Later he became a surveyor and self taught scientist. He then became assistant at the new Melbourne Observatory.  He bought a sextant, chronometer, barometer, thermometers, anemometer, telescope, notebooks, specimen jars, and preserving fluids and had the scientific instruments packed in custom built mahogany boxes.  All this and the supplies required horse drawn wagons, horses, and camels to carry heavy loads.  Burke hired two American covered wagons to carry some of the excess load.  The expedition left the park four hours late and only reached the edge of town by the end of the first day.  Members of the expedition all wore large brimmed hats known as cabbage tree hats.

     The copious baggage severely displeased Landells, second in command and the camel director.  He was an Englishman who had procured the twenty trained camels and six more circus camels which were not trained to be used as pack animals.  He was most knowledgeable about caring for and maintaining the camels, as well as communicating with the Indian Sepoys.  He also brought King, a medically discharged English soldier, from IndiaLandells was in charge of the camels as well as setting up the camps and organizing the next day's trek. Landells asked for and received six hundred pounds yearly salary, 100 pounds  more than leader Burke.  He insisted on packing nearly three hundred liters of rum to use for medicinal purposes in treating the camels.
       
        Besides Burke, Wills and Landells, there were sixteen others.  King was the ex-British Army soldier who came as a camel handler, four Sepoys (one Hindu, two Muslims, and a Parsee).  An American rogue who came through the California gold rush and the Australian gold rush joined the expedition as foreman in charge of camps and had a record of shady arrangements in previous positions.   Then there was Herman Beckler, the doctor and botanical collector, and Ludwig Becker, the artist, asked to record the expedition visually with paintings and drawings.  Ludwig was older than all the others, being in his early fifties.  All the expedition members with supervisory or scientific recording activities were urged and later ordered to be laborers, which meant packing, unpacking and leading camels with minimal riding and no time except the middle of the night to complete their observational or recording functions.   These orders from Burke were to speed the expedition northward.

    The weather was terrible with constant rain and frequent cold spells as it was still the end of winter. The camels traveled poorly in muddy wet surroundings and the wagons constantly sank deep in the mud embedding their axles.  The men had to unload the vehicle and use several teams of horses and branches under the wheels to pull the wagon out.  The men and their tents and blankets were constantly wet.  Progress was slow and miserable.  Burke was always riding out ahead on his horse thinking how he could move the expedition faster as each day cost so much with little advancement.  Soon the Hindu Sepoy who could not eat salt beef went back to Melbourne.  Burke had fired three expedition members.  Four recruits had now left and three general laborers were hired on a casual basis as they went along.  Basically the expedition had too many supplies and not enough transport.   It took hours each night to unpack and feed the animals and themselves, before bed or work on recording what had been seen or happened. 


        Settlements began to thin out and the trail passed through flat grass land with lines of trees.  This was the "bush"  Finally sixteen days after starting they reached the Murray River at Swan Hill, a town 180 miles north of Melbourne.  It was green with big trees.  Here Burke received a message from the expedition committee to abandon his wagons so he could move faster and less expensively.  The committee did not comprehend the weight and volume of the supplies.  Burke called his officers together, proposed to them that they retain the wagons until they reached the Darling River at Menindee where they would establish a depot.  This was a new idea, since the original direction from the committee was to form the depot at Cooper Creek which was six hundred kilometers beyond Menindee.

Leaving Swan Hill the expedition was down to fourteen.  Four new men were hired.  One was Bowman who had had expedition experience with Gregory in northern Australia.  A few days later Bowman left the expedition, noting Burke's poor leadership compared with that of Gregory, his previous expedition leader.  Three days north after much more rain, stuck wagons and exhausted horses, Burke held a quick public auction in Balranald, New South Wales.  After carrying this equipment all this way he sold blacksmith tools, firearms, the camel stretcher, and all the lime juice supply brought to prevent scurvy.  Burke also dismissed Ferguson, the American who was not getting along with anyone and two other laborers.  Local settlers were unimpressed that the expedition did not set up their night camp during daylight so they could see where animal grazing could occur and where night floods would not wash them away.  At each camp site the expedition  left many individual tools like shovels and axes.

   Now Burke decided to leave the known track and cut across Mallee Scrub Wasteland where shrubs and wet sand immensely slowed the wagons' progress while Burke rode on ahead with Wills.   It often took three round trips for the laboring men to get all the horses and wagons over a stretch of this difficult scrub land.

     One week north of Balranald Burke dismantled what was left of the scientific portion of the expedition.  The scientists were directed always to walk, never ride, work like laborers and to reduce their packs to fifteen kilos, essentially just clothes and no instruments.  Each camel would be required to carry an extra 180 kilos.  Many camels now had to carry two 200 pound bags of sugar or flour, one on each side.  The men had to lift the 400 pounds up onto the camel which was backbreaking effort.  Becker, the artist, described getting up at 5 a.m., having tea, biscuit, and a little cold mutton and then catching, harnessing, and packing the animals.  Their days were walking twenty four miles over sand hills through the heat of the day with no stops.  Landells said that if the camels stopped and set down they would not get up again that day.  Burke hoped that Becker, the oldest in the group, would not be able to maintain the stressful progress required and drop out. 

       Another element of discooperation developed at this time.  Burke became more and more disenchanted with the camels because they ran away at night, were hard to load and slower than the horses.  On the other hand Landells felt his camels were being over loaded and worn out even before they reached the desert where the camels would be most able to carry on.

   The expedition reached Bilbarka on the Darling River south of Menindee.  Here a steamer was headed north and Burke saw his chance to ditch the wagons and ordered eight tons of supplies aboard the steamer.  Burke got into a big argument with Landells who intended to bring his 300 liters of rum needed to encourage the camels or maybe he wanted the rum as alcohol to toughen the camels' feet when they came to rocky desert.  In any case the rum was left behind as Burke ordered.  Landells described Burke as always carrying loaded firearms and was worried that in a dangerous passion would use the firearms against members of the expedition.

        The camels and horses had to walk the 250 kilometers up to Menindee.  At Menindee Berke ordered that the camels swim across the Darling, against Landells direction that they be ferried across.  Upset by this contradiction of his authority Landells resigned and went back south.   Now twelve of the original men had resigned and only eight hires had been brought in as replacements.  The deputy leader Landells was the most prominent loss.  Wills was promoted to deputy leader as well as surveyor.  The expedition had come only 600 kilometers in 56 days which in fact was a ten day horseback ride and they were still in grazing lands with occasional towns, not yet in the true mountainous desert.  From this point onward for 2200 kilometers there would be no tracks or towns, only indigenous people.  The next point to aim for was the banks of Cooper Creek, 600 kilometers  ahead.


        It was suggested that the cool season being over a three month rest in Menindee would be sensible but Burke felt postponement would be admission of defeat.  He did realize he must reduce the expedition size.  This might be trying to get closer to Stuart's successful expedition size, or it may have been an original secret plan coming from the Royal Society to speed up the exploration.  Burke chose the "best" elements, Wills as deputy and surveyor, King as camel organizer,  Grey an ex-sailor, two other Europeans and one Sepoy along with some of the remaining camels and horses.  That would leave the doctor, the artist and the rest of the of the men, with 10 camels and 7 horses in Menindee.  While still in Menindee a news report had come from Adelaide that said Stuart had just returned there and described his getting to less than 650 kilometers of the north coast.  Burke was also worried about being recalled, so now thinking of this and his two month lead over Stuart, he ordered the expedition north toward Cooper Creek.
 
        Burke's smaller group was more harmonious, including a newly hired sheep station bush man,  Wright, with two aboriginal guides. The track toward Cooper Creek had periodic water available and was in an area of aboriginal hunters who moved from water source to water source following game.  It had become clear that Burke believed the aborigines to be inferior people that were not intelligent, or able  to help him to exist in these unusual surroundings, so he never sought their help.

    One third of the way to Cooper Creek at Torowoto Swamp Burke promoted Wright, the sheepherder, to third in command and sent him back to Menindee to bring up more dried meat and the remainder of the men, animals and stores left there.  There was, however, no understood timetable for this retrieval of supplies.

  Further on the expedition came to desert with clay beds and rock strewn patches.  On the horizon a greenish appearance came into view as they approached Cooper Creek.  This was an area of interlacing fresh water channels and small lakes situated in sandy dunes with lush green foliage, huge red gum trees and grass carpeting the red earth.  In drought times it can be reduced to a few mud holes and in flood times the water way became a massive lake.  Now it was well watered with fish, many birds, frogs, turtles, water rats, wallabies,and kangaroos.  Several tribes of aborigines lived here. They lived in small groups as hunter gatherers and only congregated on ceremonial occasions.

  Burke's expedition followed a stream until it opened up into a small lake with surrounding trees, grass and game where they set up their camp.  The aborigines when approaching a water source knew that a family considered the water source their home and waited to be invited in to such a valuable site. The explorers did not wait for invitations but just took over the site and ignored the gesticulating aborigines at the periphery.  The aborigines were trying to use sign language which was usual for them when there was a lack of communication between tribes.  The native people did gather and give fish and greens to the expedition in hopes of receiving knives and axes in return.  They had no metal tools.  Both Burke and Wills were cruel, throwing  a few trinkets to them.  The expedition members reported in their journals that the aborigines were mean-spirited and contemptible people from whom nothing worthwhile could be obtained or learned.

   This was now Australian summer and the day temperature was 90 to 105 degrees in the shade and up to 140 degrees in the sun.  Burke and Wills took brief treks north looking for a path and sources of water but found none.  A swarm of rats moved into their camp, eating everything that was not hung from tree branches. The expedition moved up the water way to a large Coolibah tree where they set up camp 65, on Cooper Creek.  Here they continued to wait for Wright to rejoin them from Menindee with supplies and transport animals.  Unfortunately Wright never received Exploration Committee approval of his promotion to third in command and the horses and camels left in Menindee were in such bad shape they could not make the 600 kilometer trip up to Cooper Creek.  Several bullocks were slaughtered and their meat dried, but it was difficult to keep the flies and maggots from consuming the drying beef.  For these reasons Wright did not start up toward Cooper Creek for many months.


        In mid-December, a month after arriving at Cooper Creek, Burke was restless and decided to move north without waiting any longer for Wright and the depot in Menindee.  He further diminished his exploration crew to himself, Wills as surveyor, the soldier King and sailor Gray.  Burke then promoted the German laborer Brahe to be in charge of the remaining four men which included a blacksmith, the last Indian camel handler, and one laborer who had lost three camels by releasing them without hobbles when they seemed to be so tired, but right after the release the camels livened up and trotted away. The group slaughtered two horses for dried meat.  Brahe was to welcome Wright whom they thought would get to Cooper Creek any day.  Burke wanted Brahe to wait three months or until supplies were running low before heading back to Menindee.  The four men going north took hardly enough food to last them for ninety days without any regard for the need for extra nourishment towards the end when they would be weaker and debilitated.  Besides food they took some firearms, a little spare clothing, and a few scientific instruments, bed rolls and no tents.  Of the twelve camels and the thirteen horses left on the Cooper, Burke took six camels and one horse north.

        The first week of travel north was along creeks and water ways getting to the edge of the desert. Then they were in sand dunes with greenery in the valleys where the ground was boggy.  Their days were similar:  up at dawn, break camp, pack, catch and load the animals, start walking using the cooler morning.  Then stop for breakfast in midmorning.  Continue on until dusk.  Unpack, feed the animals, cook dinner, and go to sleep.  Wills stayed up sighting stars and working out his locations using dead reckoning and the noon sextant reading.  They averaged about 24 kilometers progress each day.  Good grazing patches were available for the hobbled camels and horse at each camp site.

  Four days north of Cooper Creek they came to a group of milky orange fresh water lakes, Coongie Lakes,  which is a fertile area surrounded by miles of sand.  Fish were excellent additions to their diet.  The native people did help to show them water holes, but were treated with indifference or hostility as the expedition wished no interference in their progress.

    Nine days north of Cooper Creek they reached Greys Creek which was also a beautiful oasis in the desert, where they celebrated Christmas.  Each day they traveled 10 to 12 hours through dry clay, lightly timbered plains, boggy plains or monotonous red sand dunes.  Patches of hot rocky areas were only rare regions along their course.  The camels could pick their way among the rocks while the men stumbled along with shortened strides.  The men carried three or four liters of water to use during the hot day march but probably were losing fifteen liters in perspiration and excretions.  This meant the digestive system closed down its circulation preventing them from gaining the most from the limited food they were eating.  At the evening camp they could drink more and catch up from their dehydration but digestion was slower to recover.  The camels could withstand the heat and dehydration much better but were accustomed to breaking up six days of long march with one to two days of rest and eating, which this expedition did not give them, so they steadily became weaker and thinner.

      The trek continued with dry plains and scattered scrub vegetation until they reached the Selwyn Mountain range where the ground became very rocky with a labyrinth of gorges and steep slate ridges.  It took most of a week to cross them and reach the northern side.  A group of hostile aborigines was about to attack the expedition in the mountains until they saw the giant roaring "supernatural beasts", the camels, and withdrew to observe. 

        North of the Selwyn Mountains the expedition got into the northern watershed and followed river systems straight north towards the Gulf of Carpentaria.   When 200 kilometers from the ocean the expedition crossed Gregory's previous track across northern Australia.  Burke had now used up half of his ninety day food allotment which was being consumed at a faster rate than planned.  Burke still chose to continue northward to the Gulf. 


        The dry heat was behind them and the steamy tropics lay ahead.  The landscape was waving yellow grasses beneath gray threatening skies with numerous electrical storms signaling the beginning of the rainy season.

     On the Flinders River they saw turtles and crocodiles.  There were now five camels and the horse.  Travel down the Flinders River got wetter and wetter.  The camels, with their big feet having to be lifted up out of the boggy soil with each step, finally gave up and would go no further. This damp muddy site became camp 119, which was the northernmost camp of the expedition. They were on an estuary which showed a little tidal rise and fall and the ocean must have been quite close.  Burke and Wills took the horse and went looking for the ocean, leaving Gray and King with the camels. 

    After wet travel through quicksand and bog as well as forest Burke and Wills came to an aboriginal track and an abandoned aboriginal camp site.  Further on they came to a large marsh which was much too difficult to cross, so they turned back to Camp 119. They had not seen the ocean but had gotten very close to it, being blocked by swamp and mangrove thickets. 

      At camp the hot humid monsoon atmosphere with extensive mosquitoes made life miserable.  There was only one quarter of their food reserve remaining and they had the whole way back to Cooper Creek to survive on it, approximately 1600 kilometers.  They halved their daily food ration and started back on February 13, 1861, after lessening the load by leaving instruments and books.

     The monsoons continued, making headway in the wet ground very difficult, some days achieving only a few kilometers.  They walked whenever they could between the rain storms.  Burke divided the daily rations giving each their share.  Eighteen days south they came upon a large eight foot python which they cooked and ate.  Subsequently Burke and Gray got severe dysentery.  Burke recovered but Gray started a long decline.  Their route was following their camp sites backward.  Coming to the Selwyn Mountains they found an easier gap back over them.  Now on March 15th the three months since leaving Cooper Creek was up and they were still eleven hundred kilometers north of the Creek.  They reduced rations even further.  The days dragged past and the names they gave their camps are illustrative:  Humid Camp, Muddy Camp, and Mosquito Camp.  Gray was caught stealing and eating a thin broth of flour and water without permission.  This selfish act by one of the starving four men made the others watch him very closely.

    Much further south, and a month later, Billy the horse finally gave out with his legs buckling under him.  He was shot and made into stew plus dried meat.  Despite this source of protein all the men were suffering from malnutrition and Vitamin B deficiency leading to early signs of beriberi with leg weakness. Sailor Gray was much the worst of the four.  When they were 150 kilometers north of Cooper Creek at Coongie Lakes, Gray became semi comatose and was strapped on a camel's back.  Several days later he died and was buried.   It took all day to dig a shallow pit grave in the hard dirt.  The three remaining men were now too weak to walk and rode the two strongest camels on to Cooper Creek and Camp 65.  There was no one there, only a sign carved into the big Coolibah tree saying "dig under" and the date April 21, 1861.  Brahe and his men had left that morning to return to Menindee.  After digging up the buried container the three men found the few stores that Brahe had buried and sat down to a wonderfully needed meal of porridge  with sugar and tea.

       Next morning the three men realized that in their depleted condition they could not catch Brahe even though he was only one day ahead, and Burke devised an alternate plan to follow Cooper Creek southwest to Mount Hopeless and on south to Adelaide as Gregory had done in 1858 coming from Brisbane.  So they put their journals and letters in the container and reburied it under the big tree and left, but unfortunately left little above ground evidence of having gotten back to camp 65.  Wills tried to convince Burke to follow Brahe south on the known trail but did not succeed so the three went southwest on an unknown track.  This is one example of sensible advice from Wills not being accepted by Burke who was not willing to listen to other members of the expedition, nor did Wills have a personality strong enough to be insistent. 


        At this time three parts of the expedition were within 150 kilometers of each other.   Burke, Wills and King were leaving camp 65 but on the unknown track, not retracing their steps south.  Brahe was two days south headed for Menindee, and Wright's party, including a very sick Becker and Dr. Beckler, was halfway up from Menindee with replenishment supplies and animals, but was caught in the desert in a severe drought where most water holes were only mud or completely dried up.   

    Wright camped at "Rat Point", a site over run with hungry rodents and several members of his group were seriously ill.  Becker, the artist,  died here.  The aborigines found them and tried to help but were shooed away when they also tried to steal dishes, pots and knives.  A dispute developed between the dehydrated sick Europeans and the aborigines leading to a one-sided gun fight where the aboriginal leader who had tried to be diplomatic was killed.

  The native people pulled back and Wright continued north.  Many men had severe dysentery, probably from drinking water from nearly dried up water holes.   Finally they got to Bulloo Lake where Brahe coming south joined them.  Not only was the dysentery bad, but now scurvy and beriberi were also serious problems.  A sensible plan would be to return as fast as possible to Menindee on the Darling River but Brahe believed that he needed to be sure Burke had not come back to Camp 65 at Cooper Creek so he and Wright, traveling on the best horses, went back the 150 kilometers to Camp 65 and the Coolibah tree.  It seemed exactly as Brahe had left it seventeen days before with the same sign cut into the tree, and the earth apparently not disturbed over the buried container, so after a few minutes they rode back south to catch up with the group heading to the Darling River.  They had not seen that the rake had been moved, a broken bottle had been added to a spike on the stockade fence,and a circle of leather cut out of the stockade door.

     The Burke-Wills-King group was only 30 kilometers southwest finding their trek to Mount Hopeless difficult.  The last two of their tired emaciated camels had now died so they had to hand carry everything.  They eventually got 65 kilometers southwest when the branch of the creek they were following dried up.  They had to turn back.  They were living on pounded Nardoo seeds, a native plant which was rich in starch and used as flour. They ate the Nardoo paste raw while the aborigines always pounded it with water and cooked the paste over an open fire which made it more digestible.  This was something they could have learned from the aborigines if they had been willing to learn from the native people.  The three explorers were getting weaker and weaker on this diet; some fish which the aborigines traded with them was not enough and the beriberi and malnutrition worsened. 

        They got back to Cooper Creek and Wills, knowing he was about to die, convinced Burke and King to leave him and go to find the nearby aboriginal tribe, who might help them survive.  It was now mid-June.  Burke and King went on for two days northeast along the creek and Burke could go no further.  He died after giving directions to King not to bury him.  King now by himself went back to check on Wills and found him dead in his little open hut. King buried Wills' body and then tracked the aborigines to their camp.  They took him in, fed him fish and provided him with a hut in which to sleep.  The tribe had mixed feelings about supporting King but one woman took particular care of him, then the whole tribe accepted his presence.  The tribe was very sorry to hear of Wills' death but were not unhappy about Burke whom they felt was hostile and arrogant yet they showed grief when taken by King to his body which was rotting in the sun, still holding his revolver.  The aborigines covered the body with bushes.  This was mid-June, four weeks after Wright and Brahe had come back looking for them.

   By late May, in Melbourne, the lack of any word from the expedition's northern group finally led to plans for a rescue group to be sent north.  One of the strongest proponents of this plan was Doctor Wills, father of the explorer.  At this time Burke, Wills and King were still alive on Cooper Creek.  But it took time for the Royal Society to organize a rescue operation.  They chose an accomplished bush man, Howitt, who left on the rescue mission on June 26th.  He chose three additional men and took the train to Bondigo and a coach to Swan Hill.  A little north he came upon Brahe who told him all about Burke's heading north and not returning.  This horrified Howitt and he was ready to go back to Melbourne but a directive from the Royal Society said to keep on with the rescue operation since there was no evidence that the men were not still alive.  So Howitt continued.  Queensland also sent a rescue team from Rockampton north of Brisbane towards the Gulf of Carpentaria led by Walker, another bush man.  Even Adelaide sent a rescue mission since they had not heard from Stuart since January 186l, and that group would also look for Burke and Wills.


        Howitt
made good time to Menindee, used some of Burke's depot provisions and headed north to Cooper Creek taking only twenty five days.  Brahe led the way to camp 65 where the rescue team did not dig up the container under the tree because all still looked unchanged from the time Brahe had seen it twice before.  The team camped further north on the Creek and on September 15th, one of the rescue team found a group of aborigines among whom was King.  He looked like a scarecrow but still wore the remains of his cabbage tree hat.  It was one year and twenty five days since the expedition had left the Royal Park in Melbourne and three months since Wills and Burke had died.  The rescue group fed him and he regained some strength but his mind seemed very fragile.  He broke down in tears at the slightest provocation.  Now Howitt started back and while passing camp 65 did follow the direction on the big Coolibah tree to "dig" and found the buried journals, letters and maps that told the whole Burke Wills story.

       On the way south King had to be strapped onto a horse and he became hysterical very easily.  The train from Bendigo came into Melbourne where the population was jubilant about the transcontinental trek of its exploration group and had a great desire to see King, the only survivor.  Burke was considered a dead hero and beyond criticism.   Wills was hardly mentioned.  Wills' father tried to force an interview with King but was turned away. This was needless because King was so mentally deranged that he was saying very little.  One newspaper which had originally criticized Burke said he was responsible for the expedition's death toll and that Wills was the real hero of the expedition. 

     By November 1861 the hero worship of the expedition members raised questions as to what the Royal Society and its expedition committee had done to protect the explorers and why they had not brought Burke's and Wills' bodies back for proper burial in Melbourne. The formal inquiry took place in November when the investigating committee ended up blaming Brahe for leaving Cooper Creek and Wright for not getting back to Cooper Creek with the reserve supplies and animals.  Here it should be noted that John Stuart, starting from Adelaide, completed the south to north transcontinental trek on July 24, 1862, a year after Burke and Wills' deaths.

    Burke's exploration had cost several European and one aboriginal lives while the rescue expeditions formed to find Burke covered more than eleven thousand kilometers, or 6800 miles, without the loss of any life.  The reasons are clearly better leadership attitudes and planning.

  Here the comparison of the Burke/Wills trans-Australian exploration and the Lewis and Clark trans-American exploration fifty five years before becomes interesting.  First, the American expedition was not rushed into.  Jefferson had been thinking for some time about such an expedition and had first hired Clark's brother and later started a Frenchman on such an exploration in the 1790's.  It turned out the Frenchman was a spy and was recalled before he got west of Pennsylvania.  After the Louisiana purchase the need for an exploration of the Missouri River valley became paramount so Jefferson enlisted his capable and intelligent private secretary, Lewis, who loved trekking in the wilderness, and Clark, an experienced frontiersman and army officer, to lead the expedition.  They were supported with federal funds, Lewis was enlisted in the Army, and they were given directions by President Jefferson, not a committee.  One potential issue was that Lewis and Clark were to be co-commanders of the Corps of Discovery, but Clark's commission came through as a lieutenant instead of captain, Lewis' rank.  Despite this, Clark was paid a captain's wage and the Corps of Discovery always acted as if both were co-commanders.  Two equal and cooperating leaders bring broader leadership and this helps make the best decisions.

   The American exploratory trip had several main purposes.  One was to inform any French settlers and Indian tribes encountered along the way that the United States now owned and controlled the purchased area.  Secondly the expedition was to endeavor to get the numerous antagonistic native tribes long the River to accept and cooperate with each other so that the River could become a commercial trade route all the way to the mountains.  Thirdly the Corps was to map the River carefully and study all of its geography, animals and plants, keeping accurate journals of these observations, as well as information about the land west of the mountains to the Pacific Ocean.  It was also to bring back samples of plants and animals.  Lewis was the acting physician and he was the surveyor who read the sun at noon and the stars at night to record the Corps' location.  Clark produced the maps.  Not insignificantly the Lewis and Clark expedition was to travel on the River in a large River keelboat and two pirogues or large canoes.  They carried arms, clothes, scientific instruments, tools and four to five thousand rations of food, flour, salt, and salt pork plus ground corn and whiskey.  They also carried presents for the Indians to be used in converting them into loyal Americans.  An interesting addition to their cargo was a foldable boat frame which they could cover with skins to produce another boat.


        When Lewis and Clark started up the River the five mile an hour current, the spring drift wood coming down stream and sand bars made progress difficult.
  The men rowed, towed, or poled the keelboat and sailed when the wind was favorable.  Travel frequently was slow.  As you can see, there were many similarities between the expeditions of Lewis and Clark and of Burke and Wills.  The main differences were the Corps of Discovery succeeded in making friends with most of the native tribes encountered, and got considerable help from those tribes, including the winter cooperation with the Mandan Indians in North Dakota, much needed horses from the Shoshone Snake Indians in the mountains, help with directions and translations by Sacagawea, and life-giving food (dogs and salmon) from the Shoshone and Nes Pierce tribes west of the Rocky Mountains.

       Another difference was the Corps of Discovery starting in the best season, spring, and taking their time resting and planning while Burke was always pushing onwards in his desire to get north to the ocean before Stuart, knowing that Stuart always honored Sundays as a holiday resting his animals and men.  Burke did not leave time for hunting local game to add to their diminished food supply while Lewis and Clark ate local game which was always possible except in the mountains.

        Lewis and Clark completed their longer voyage of discovery with the loss of only one life, Sergeant Floyd,  who, on the way out, died of fever and was buried with military honors on the riverbank north of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

      So if any of you are planning a transcontinental exploratory trek, plan carefully, do not subdivide and further subdivide your men, take time to rest and regain momentum, maintain your transport animals, stay friendly with the indigenous people and gather, prepare and eat local game and vegetation along the way.

       It might be of interest to note that the railroad connection across the northern route to Montana, the Rockies and Portland, Oregon, a distance of 2000 miles following Lewis and Clark's path, took some seventy five years after the Corps of Discovery's journey to complete.  The rail line from Adelaide to Darwin on the north coast of Australia, 1800 miles, was just completed in 2004, more than 140 years after the Burke and Wills exploratory trek.