CHAPTER 18. A.C. AND F.T. GREGORY.

18.1. A. C. GREGORY ON STURT'S CREEK AND THE BARCOO.

The Imperial Government having long considered the feasibility of further exploration of the interior of Australia voted 5000 pounds for the purpose, and offered the command of the expedition to A. C. Gregory. As the inexplicable disappearance of Leichhardt was then exciting much interest in Australia, search for the lost expedition was to form one of its chief duties.

On the 12th of August, 1855, Gregory's party left Moreton Bay in the barque Monarch, attended by the schooner Tom Tough. There were eighteen men in all. H. C. Gregory was second in command, Ferdinand von Mueller was botanist, J. S. Wilson geologist, J. R. Elsey surgeon and naturalist, and J. Baines artist and storekeeper. They had on board fifty horses, two hundred sheep, and provisions and stores calculated to last them eighteen months on full rations.

They did not reach Point Pearce, at the mouth of the Victoria River, until the 24th of September. There they separated, the schooner taking the stores up the river, and the Monarch proceeding on her voyage to Singapore. The horses had been landed at Point Pearce, whence Gregory, his brother, and seven men took them on overland by easy stages. One night the horses were attacked by crocodiles, and three of them were severely wounded. They followed up the course of the Fitzmaurice River and then passed over rough country, not reaching the Victoria until the 17th. On the 20th they rejoined the members who had gone round by the schooner, and learned that she was aground in the river. A large part of their stores was spoiled; and the number of the sheep had also been reduced to forty, in consequence of their being foolishly kept penned up on board. These losses and accidents considerably weakened Gregory's resources, and it was not until the 24th of November that any excursion on horseback was undertaken.

An attempt had previously been made to ascend the river in the portable boat with which the expedition had been supplied, but it was not successful, as the boat could not navigate the rocky bars in safety.

Gregory left camp accompanied by his brother, Dr. von Mueller, and Wilson, taking seven horses and twenty days' rations, his object being to examine the country through which the exploring party would have to travel on their route to the interior. On this preliminary trip, he penetrated as far as latitude 16 1/2 south, whence, finding the tributaries flowing from fine open plains and level forest country, all well-grassed, he returned to the main camp.

On the 4th of January, 1856, Gregory started with a much larger party on an energetic dash into the interior. He had with him six men besides his brother, Dr. von Mueller and Baines the artist, and thirty-six horses. He retraced his steps along his preliminary route, and on the 30th of January, thinking it wise judging from the rapid evaporation of the waterholes, to make his means of retreat secure, he formed a temporary camp, leaving there four men and all the horses but eleven to await his return, whilst he, his brother, Dr. Mueller, and a man named Dean, rode ahead to challenge the desert to the south. On the 9th of February, having run the Victoria out, he crossed an almost level watershed, and found himself on the confines of the desert. From a slight rise he looked southwards:--

"The horizon was unbroken; all appeared one slightly undulating plain, with just sufficient triodia and bushes growing on it to hide the red sand when viewed at a distance."

Gregory reviewed the problem from a logical standpoint. He decided to follow the northern limit of the desert to the westward, until he should find a southern-flowing watercourse which would afford him the opportunity to make a dash beyond its confines.

On the 15th of February he came to a small flat which gradually developed into a channel and ultimately became a creek, running first west, and then south-west. This gave him his desired opening, and he pursued the course of the creek through good open country, finding the water plentiful, though shallow. On February 20th, however, the channel of the creek was lost in an immense grassy plain. The country to the south being sandy and unpromising, Gregory kept westwards, and succeeded in again picking up the channel, now finding the water in it to be slightly brackish. That day he crossed the boundary of Western Australia. The creek now gave promise of continuity, the water-holes taking on a more permanent appearance. It was now pursuing a general south-west course, and Gregory, though still rightly anticipating that it would eventually be lost in the dry interior, determined to follow it as far south as should be compatible with safety. He named the creek Sturt's Creek, after the gallant explorer of that name, who was naturally then often in his mind. The creek maintained its southern course, until, on the 8th of March, it ran out into a mud plain and a salt lake.

"Thus, after having followed Sturt's Creek for nearly 300 miles, we have been disappointed in our hope that it would lead to some important outlet to the waters of the Australian interior; it has, however, enabled us to penetrate far into the level tract of country which may be termed the Great Australian Desert."

Gregory, convinced that no useful results could arise from any attempt to penetrate the inhospitable region to the south, determined to return before the rapidly-evaporating water on which they were dependent should vanish and cut off all retreat. He therefore retraced his steps up Sturt's Creek, and on the 28th of March arrived at his temporary depot, where he found the men all well and the horses much improved in condition.

On the 2nd of April, A. C. Gregory, taking his brother Henry, Baines, and one man, started on an excursion to examine the eastern tributaries of the Victoria, and was absent a little over a fortnight. On their return, the whole of the members started for the landing-place on the Victoria, which they reached on the 9th of May. After all arrangements and preparations had been completed, Gregory, with most of the party, started on the return journey overland to Moreton Bay. The Tom Tough, now caulked and repaired, was to make her way to the Albert River in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where they would again probably meet.

Traversing the tributaries of the Victoria on his homeward way, Gregory met with no remarkable incident until his arrival on the Elsey, a tributary of the Roper River, which he named after the surgeon of the expedition. It was here that he came upon the last authentic trace of Leichhardt. He describes his discovery as follows:--

"There was also the remains of a hut and the ashes of a large fire, indicating that there had been a party camped there for several weeks; several trees from six to eight inches in diameter had been cut down with iron axes in fair condition, and the hut built by cutting notches in standing trees and resting a large pole therein for a ridge; this hut had been burnt apparently by the subsequent bush fires, and only some pieces of the thickest timber remained unconsumed. Search was made for marked trees, but none found, nor were there any fragments of leather, iron, or other equipment of an exploring party, or of any bones of animals other than those common to Australia. Had an exploring party been destroyed here, there would most likely have been some indications, and it may therefore be inferred that the party proceeded on its journey.

It could not have been a camp of Leichhardt's in 1845, as it is 100 miles south of his route to Port Essington; and it was only six or seven years old, judging by the growth of the trees; having subsequently seen some of Leichhardt's camps on the Burdekin, Mackenzie and Barcoo Rivers, a great similarity was observed in regard to the manner of building the hut and its relative position with regard to the fire and water supply, and the position in regard to the great features of the country was exactly where a party going westward would first receive a check from the waterless tableland between the Roper and Victoria Rivers, and would probably camp and reconnoitre ahead before attempting to cross to the north-west coast."

From the Roper the party travelled around the shore of the Gulf, keeping rather more inland than Leichhardt had done. On reaching the Albert they found that the Tom Tough had not yet arrived at the rendezvous; and Gregory, leaving a marked tree with a message indicating the situation of some instructions he had buried, pushed onwards.

His route from the Albert lay along much the same line of country as that followed by Leichhardt during his journey to Port Essington. He did not, however, make such a wide sweep to the north, up to the Mitchell, but struck away from Carpentaria at the Gilbert River. He corrected the error Leichhardt had fallen into over the situation of the Albert, and re-named the river that he had mistaken the Leichhardt. The exploring party reached the settled districts at Hay's station, Rannes, south of the Fitzroy; and thence reached Brisbane on the 16th of December, 1856.

To advance the search after Leichhardt, the interest in whose fate had been stimulated by the discovery made by Gregory, a public meeting was held in September, 1857, at which resolutions were passed requesting monetary assistance from the Government, and offering the leadership of a new expedition to A. C. Gregory. The appeal was successful, and accordingly in March, 1858, Gregory left Euroomba station on the Dawson with a party of nine in all, one of his brothers going as second. The expedition was equipped for light travelling, taking as means of carriage pack-horses only, of which there were thirty-one, as well as nine saddle-horses.

Gregory crossed the Nive on to the Barcoo, which he proceeded to run down, finding the country in a very different condition from that in which it bloomed when Mitchell rode rejoicingly along what he thought was a Gulf river. A sharp look out was of course kept for any trace of the missing party, and on the 21st of April they came across another marked tree.

"We discovered a Moreton Bay ash (Eucalyptus sp.), about two feet in diameter marked with the letter L on the east side, cut through the bark about four feet from the ground, and near it the stumps of some small trees that had been cut with a sharp axe, also a deep notch cut in the side of a sloping tree, apparently to support the ridge-pole of a tent, or some similar purpose; all indicating that a camp had been established here by Leichhardt's party... No other indications having been found, we continued the search down the river, examining every likely spot for marked trees, but without success."

Approaching the Thomson River, they found the country suffering from drought although the river was running in consequence of some late rains. As winter was now approaching, there was however no spring in the vegetation, and their horses were suffering great hardship. On the 15th of May they found themselves beyond the rainfall, and realised that lack of water was likely to be added to an absence of grass.

"We, however, succeeded in reaching latitude 23 degrees 47 minutes, when the absence of water and grass -- the rain not having extended so far north, and the channels of the river separating into small gullies and spreading on to the wide plains -- precluded our progressing further to the north or west; and the only chance of saving our horses was to return south as quickly as possible. This was a most severe disappointment, as we had just reached that part of the country through which Leichhardt most probably travelled if the season was sufficiently wet to render it practicable. Thus compelled to abandon the principal object of the expedition, only two courses remained open -- either to return to the head of the Victoria (Barcoo) River and attempt a northern course by the valley of the Belyando, or to follow down the river and ascertain whether it flowed into Cooper's Creek or the Darling."

The latter alternative was chosen, and they proceeded to retrace their steps down the Thomson, and on reaching the junction of the Barcoo they continued south and west. In fact, following Kennedy's route, they soon found themselves involved in the same difficulties that had beset that explorer. The river -- now Cooper's Creek -- broke up into countless channels running through barren, fissured plains. Toiling on through these, varied by an interlude of sandhills, Gregory at last reached a better-grassed land, where his famished horses regained a little strength. He reached Sturt's furthest point, and continued on to the point where Strzelecki's Creek carried off some of the surplus flood waters, and finally lost the many channels amongst the sandhills and flooded plains. He again struck Strzelecki's Creek and traced it as he then thought, into Lake Torrens, but in reality into Lake Blanche, for the salt lake region had not then been properly delimited. He reached Baker's recently-formed station, eight miles beyond Mount Hopeless, and thence he went on to Adelaide.