and the third the finding of the remains.

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF: FINDING OF BURKE.]

Burke and Wills, to whom belongs the honor of being the first explorers
that crossed the entire continent of Australia, extending their
researches from the Australian to the Pacific Ocean, set out on the 20th
of August, 1860, with a party of fifteen hardy pioneers upon their
perilous mission. Burke was in the prime of life, a man of iron frame,
dauntless courage and an enthusiasm that knew neither difficulty nor
danger. Wills, who belonged to a family that had already given one of
its members to Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, to find a martyr's
grave among the eternal icebergs of the north, was somewhat younger, and
perhaps less enthusiastic, but was endowed with a rare discretion and
far-seeing sagacity that peculiarly fitted him to be the friend and
counselor of the enthusiastic Burke in such an undertaking. All
Melbourne was in excitement: the government gave fifty thousand dollars,
various individuals ten thousand, to aid the enterprise; and every heart
was aglow with aspirations for their success as the little band of
heroes waved their adieus and turned their faces outward to seek paths
hitherto untrodden by the white man's foot. Besides horses, twenty-seven
camels had been imported from India for the express use of the explorers
and for the transportation of tents, baggage, equipments, and fifteen
months' supply of provisions, with vessels for carrying such supplies of
water as the character of the country over which they were passing
should require them to take with them. Their plan of march divided
itself into three stages, of which Cooper's Creek was the middle one,
and about the centre of the Australian continent. At first their
progress was slow, encumbered as they were by excess of baggage and