FROM WHENCE FIRST STARTED THOSE EXPLORATIONS
BY LAND AND SEA,
WHICH HAVE RESULTED IN THROWING OPEN TO THE NATIONS OF THE
WORLD A NEW CONTINENT,
NOW RAPIDLY DEVELOPING, UNDER FREE CONSTITUTIONS,
A
PROSPEROUS, CONTENTED, AND SELF-GOVERNING COMMUNITY,
THIS
HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATION
IS DEDICATED.

ERNEST FAVENC, SYDNEY, 1888.





PREFACE.

A complete history of the exploration of Australia will never be written.
The story of the settlement of our continent is necessarily so intermixed
with the results of private travels and adventures, that all the
historian can do is to follow out the career of the public expeditions,
and those of private origin which extended to such a distance, and
embraced such important discoveries, as to render the results matters of
national history.

That private individuals have done the bulk of the detail work there is
no denying; but that work, although every whit as useful to the community
as the more brilliant exploits that carried with them the publicity of