PETITIONED FOR BY THE COUNCIL,
AND
UNDERTAKEN AT THE EXPENSE OF THE COLONY,
IS
DEDICATED
BY
THEIR MOST OBEDIENT,
HUMBLE SERVANT,
T. L. MITCHELL





PREFACE.



"Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,"[* Burns.] it has ever been the
most attractive of the author's duties to explore the interior of
Australia. There the philosopher may look for facts; the painter and the
poet for original studies and ideas; the naturalist for additional
knowledge; and the historian might begin at a beginning. The traveller
there seeks in vain for the remains of cities, temples, or towers; but he
is amply compensated by objects that tell not of decay but of healthful
progress and hope;--of a wonderful past, and of a promising future.
Curiosity alone may attract us into the mysterious recesses of regions
still unknown; but a still deeper interest attaches to those regions, now
that the rapid increase of the most industrious and, may we add most
deserving people on earth, suggests that the land there has been reserved