Major Mitchell was then the Surveyor-General of the Colony, and he
entirely traversed and made known the region he appropriately named
Australia Felix, now the colony of Victoria. Mitchell, like Sturt,
conducted three expeditions: the first in 1831-1832, when he traced
the River Darling previously discovered by Sturt, for several hundred
miles, until he found it trend directly to the locality at which
Sturt, in his journey down the Murray, had seen and laid down its
mouth or junction with the larger river. Far up the Darling, in
latitude 30 degrees 5', Mitchell built a stockade and formed a depot,
which he called Fort Bourke; near this spot the present town of Bourke
is situated and now connected by rail with Sydney, the distance being
about 560 miles. Mitchell's second journey, when he visited Australia
Felix, was made in 1835, and his last expedition into tropical
Australia was in 1845. On this expedition he discovered a large river
running in a north-westerly direction, and as its channel was so
large, and its general appearance so grand, he conjectured that it
would prove to be the Victoria River of Captain Lort Stokes, and that
it would run on in probably increasing size, or at least in
undiminished magnificence, through the 1100 or 1200 miles of country
that intervened between his own and Captain Stokes's position. He
therefore called it the Victoria River. Gregory subsequently
discovered that Mitchell's Victoria turned south, and was one and the
same watercourse called Cooper's Creek by Sturt. The upper portion of
this watercourse is now known by its native name of the Barcoo, the
name Victoria being ignored. Mitchell always had surveyors with him,
who chained as he went every yard of the thousands of miles he
explored. He was knighted for his explorations, and lived to enjoy the
honour; so indeed was Sturt, but in his case it was only a mockery,
for he was totally blind and almost on his deathbed when the