but he seems to have under-valued his rival, and wasted time in
returning and refitting when he might have performed the feat in two
if not one journey; for he discovered a well-watered country the whole
way, and his route is now mainly the South Australian Transcontinental
Telegraph Line, though it must be remembered that Stuart had something
like fifteen hundred miles of unknown country in front of him to
explore, while Burke and Wills had scarcely six. Stuart also conducted
some minor explorations before he undertook his greater one. He and
McKinlay were South Australia's heroes, and are still venerated there
accordingly. He died in England not long after the completion of his
last expedition.

We now come to probably the most melancholy episode in the long
history of Australian exploration, relating to the fate of Burke and
Wills. The people and Government of the colony of Victoria determined
to despatch an expedition to explore Central Australia, from Sturt's
Eyre's Creek to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria at the mouth of
the Albert River of Stokes's, a distance in a straight line of not
more than six hundred miles; and as everything that Victoria
undertakes must always be on the grandest scale, so was this. One
colonist gave 1000 pounds; 4000 pounds more was subscribed, and then
the Government took the matter in hand to fit out the Victorian
Exploring Expedition. Camels were specially imported from India, and
everything was done to ensure success; when I say everything, I mean
all but the principal thing--the leader was the wrong man. He knew
nothing of bush life or bushmanship, navigation, or any art of travel.
Robert O'Hara Burke was brave, no doubt, but so hopelessly ignorant of
what he was undertaking, that it would have been the greatest wonder
if he had returned alive to civilisation. He was accompanied by a
young man named Wills as surveyor and observer; he alone kept a diary,