but also with an earnest desire to promote the public good, and certainly
without the hope of any other reward than the credit due to successful
enterprise. I pretend not to science, but I am a lover of it; and to my
own exertions, during past years of military repose, I owe the little
knowledge I possess of those branches of it, which have since been so
useful to me.

It will not be deemed presumptuous in me, I trust, to express a belief
that the majority of my readers will find much to interest them in the
perusal of this work; which I publish for several reasons--firstly, in
the hope, that a knowledge of the extremities to which I was driven, and
of the unusual expedients to which I was obliged to resort, in order to
save myself and my companions from perishing, may benefit those who shall
hereafter follow my example; secondly, that as I published an account of
my former services, my failing to do so in the present instance might be
taken as evidence that I lacked the moral firmness which enables men to
meet both success and defeat with equal self-possession; and thirdly,
because, I think the public has a right to demand information from those,
who, like myself, have been employed in the advancement of geographical
knowledge. I propose, therefore, to devote my preliminary chapter to a
short review of previous Expeditions of Discovery on the Australian
continent, and so to lay down its internal features, that my friends
shall not lose their way.

I propose, also, to give an account of the state of South Australia when
I left it in May last, for, as the expedition whose proceedings form the
subject matter of these volumes, departed from and returned to that
Province, such an account appears to me a fitting sequel to my narrative.