The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888
Favenc, Ernest, 1845-1908
English
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Below is a summary of The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888
The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888.
Complied from State Documents, Private Papers and the
most authentic sources of information.
Issued under the auspices of the Government of the
Australian Colonies.
by
Ernest Favenc.
Sydney:
Turner and Henderson
1888
Dedication.
TO
THE HON. SIR HENRY PARKES, G.C.M.G., C.C.I., M.P.,
AS
THE OLDEST RULING STATESMAN IN AUSTRALIA,
AND IN THE
PRESENT CENTENARY YEAR
THE PREMIER OF NEW SOUTH WALES,
THE MOTHER COLONY,
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
Government patronage, has not found the same careful preservation.
To find the material to write such a history would necessitate the work
of a lifetime, and the co-operation of hundreds of old colonists; and,
when written, it would inevitably, from the nature of the subject, prove
most monotonous reading, and fill, I am afraid to think, how many
volumes. The reader has but to consider the immense area of country now
under pastoral occupation, and to remember that each countless
subordinate river and tributary creek was the result of some extended
research of the pioneer squatter, to realise this.
Since the hope of finding an inland sea, or main central range, vanished
for ever, the explorer cannot hope to discover anything much more
exciting or interesting than country fitted for human habitation. The
attributes of the native tribes are very similar throughout. Since the
day when Captain Phillip and his little band settled down here and tried
to gain the friendship of the aboriginal, no startling difference has
been found in him throughout the continent. As he was when Dampier came
to our shores, so is he now in the yet untrodden parts of Australia, and
the explorer knows that from him he can only gain but a hazardous and
uncertain tale of what lies beyond.
But, in this utter want of knowledge of the country to be explored, where
even the physical laws do not assimilate with those of other continents,
lies the great charm of Australian exploration. It is the spectacle of
one man pitted against the whole force of nature--not the equal struggle
of two human antagonists, but the old fable of the subtle dwarf and the
self-confident giant.
When the battle commenced between Sturt and the interior, he was, as he
thought, vanquished, though in reality the victor.
In the history of exploration are to be found some of the brightest
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