Thirteen
Never More Severely Taxed

‘A live donkey is better than a dead lion isn’t it?’
Ernest Shackleton to his wife, after turning back ninety-seven miles from the South Pole in 1909.

The revelation occurred as Burke’s party toiled through the sandhills. In the open sun, the men clawed their way up the ramparts as the grit slithered away beneath them. ‘Each day,’ John King scribbled wearily towards the end of December, ‘we had to face the Desert again.’ Even Wills was exhausted:

We found the ground much worse to travel over than any we have yet met with. As the ridges were exceedingly abrupt and steep on their eastern side, and although sloping gradually towards the west, were so honeycombed in some places by the burrows of rats, that the camels were continually in danger of falling.

They tried to keep to the meshes of vegetation that anchored the sand—but marching through the clumps of spinifex was like striding through a forest of razor blades and their trousers hung in rags around their bloody ankles. Every dune was the same and every summit revealed another confusing mass of orange laid out like a giant rumpled tablecloth. Marching parallel to the hills, down in the claypans, was easier. Sometimes it was possible to follow the shelter of a valley for hours, unaware of anything but the strip of greenery stretched out ahead. The danger was that by sticking to the low-lying ground, the explorers might miss creeks or lagoons just one sandhill to the left or right. It would be easy to die just a few hundred feet from a water source hidden by a wall of sand.

This area of western Queensland is now known as the channel country. Flying is the best way to appreciate the arid landscape and the fragility of the river system that feeds it. Watching the carpet of ochre pass beneath, hour after hour, imagining what it would be like to cross it on foot, is an awe-inspiring experience. Only a few tiny capillaries of green, spread out like a network of blood vessels, give any clue that life is being pumped through isolated corridors of land. In a fertile year, latching on to one of these creeks is like connecting with the slenderest branches of a tree. Following it will lead to larger and larger branches until the trunk is reached and, with any luck, it will be rooted to the coastline.

Without a map, grasping one of these elusive lifelines is a lottery. A party could wander for weeks, as Sturt’s did, and find nothing, but Burke and Wills hit the jackpot on 27 December, just south of the present-day town of Birdsville. They climbed yet another dune, unaware of the stunning view that awaited them. Moments later they were gazing down over a floodplain, lined with rich vegetation and dotted with snowy white cockatoos. There were birds everywhere. ‘We saw plenty of turkies,’ wrote King in delight as he watched the plump Australian bustards taking off from their hideaways in the spinifex.

Today the sight of the lime-green ribbon draped between the orange dunes is still as unexpected as it is striking. Burke and Wills had found a branch of the Diamantina River. If they had veered any further to the west, they would have found themselves entangled in the world’s largest parallel dune system: the Simpson Desert.

The Simpson is like a giant sand maze covering 150,000 square kilometres. Some of the dunes reach forty metres in height. In fertile seasons the desert is a patchwork of purple, white, yellow and red wildflowers but there is not a drop of permanent water in the whole area. Without rain it is reduced to bare expanses of sand sparsely covered with the spiky remains of spinifex, hakea and acacia plants.

Every expedition deserves its share of good luck and Burke and Wills had just received theirs. Finding the Diamantina was the key to reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria. It would lead them towards the Georgina River system, and from there almost directly north to the coast. From now on, finding water would not be a problem. It seemed Burke’s gamble was paying off.

The explorers were not the only people taking advantage of the river. Many tribes, including the Wangkamana, the Yarluyandi, the Wangkangurru, the Mithaka and the Karuwali, lived in the area. John King was amazed to find that some were not only brave enough to approach but generous enough to point out the best billabongs as well: ‘they saw our fire & were making to the spot when they saw us they kept going away & point(ing) to where the water was.’

Over the next few days Wills noticed further evidence of Aboriginal occupation:

Jan 5th.—We came to a creek with a long broad, shallow waterhole. The well worn path, the recent tracks of natives, and the heaps of shells, on the contents of which the latter had feasted, showed at once that this creek must be connected with some creek of considerable importance.

It was now nearly three weeks since the party had left Depot Camp 65. Despite the plentiful grass Wills realised that the camels were ‘greatly in need of rest’. It was a worrying sign, especially as they had at least 1200 kilometres to go to reach the north coast.

Camels are uniquely adapted to cope with the desert. They can alter their body temperature over a range of seven degrees, allowing them to operate in a wide range of conditions. Their long eyelashes and small fur-lined ears protect them from the sand and their fat-rich humps and ability to recycle their urine insulate them from dehydration. But camels are not as ‘invincible’ as the newspapers of the 1860s had believed. While they can travel enormous distances (up to 100 kilometres in a day), they cannot sustain this for long periods without sufficient time to recuperate. ‘A common fault with European officers,’ wrote one camel expert, Arnold Leese, ‘is to be in too much of a hurry.’ Burke insisted on marching for twelve hours a day and hobbling the beasts at night. His camels were not getting enough to eat.

In Burke’s defence, he had probably been taken in by the extravagant claims Landells had made to impress the committee. Inspired by false confidence and oblivious to the first signs of the camels’ distress, Burke surged on, taking no rest days and still managing to average thirty to forty kilometres a day. A rare diary entry for 5 January 1861 reveals that the pace was beginning to tell on him as well as his animals:

Water at Wills’ or King’s Creek. It is impossible to say the time were up, for we had to load the camels, to pack and feed them, to watch them and the horse, and to look for water, but I am satisfied that the frame of man never was more severely taxed.

As the explorers trekked towards the Georgina River system they found that the country was improving ‘by the yard’. The grass was abundant and the riverbanks were smothered with yellow and white ‘poached egg daisies’. Travelling was easy and they soon reached an area near the present-day outpost of Boulia, a town deriving its name from the Pitta-Pitta Aboriginal phrase bulla-bulla meaning large waterhole. The journey was progressing smoothly until on 7 January, one of the pack camels decided to roll, slightly damaging some of Wills’ instruments. He worried that the accident might affect the accuracy of his navigational calculations.

As they followed a large creek, now known as the Burke River, the explorers noticed the vegetation was changing; the dark gnarled coolibahs were giving way to smooth silver ghost gums, magnificent trees whose trunks glowed in the moonlight like skeletons. Wills noted that flocks of pelicans were reappearing along the waterways and, as the camels swept through the long grass, the occasional kangaroo or wallaby hopped away in fright. Kookaburras with azure blue wings surveyed them knowingly from the trees and giant anthills began to litter the countryside like tombstones in a graveyard. The worst of the desert was behind them and the tropics were close at hand.

Until the failure of Trooper Lyons’ mission, William Wright clung to the idea that Burke would send back extra pack animals to help him carry the stores to the Cooper. But when Dick returned alone, he realised it was not to be. Exasperated by the delay, the journalist William Hodgkinson took matters into his own hands. On 22 December, he wrote out a dispatch dictated by Wright and set off for Melbourne. Showing remarkable speed, he completed the journey in nine days, arriving on John Macadam’s doorstep on New Year’s Eve.

It is impossible to tell how much Hodgkinson influenced the content of Wright’s dispatch but the message raised the fear that Burke might have pushed on without waiting for his extra supplies. According to Wright, there was now ‘the most serious apprehensions to the safety of himself and his party’. Macadam responded by convening an emergency meeting at which the committee expressed surprise that Wright was still in Menindee and not on his way to the Cooper. It confirmed the station manager’s appointment as third-in-command and authorised him to spend £400 buying extra horses and saddles. Business complete, the members retired to their new year festivities satisfied they had done everything necessary for the expedition. Hodgkinson left the next morning and by 9 January he was back in Menindee.

While Burke and Wills followed creek after creek towards the Gulf and Wright battled to organise his relief party, another expedition was also preparing to head north. It was Burke’s rival—John McDouall Stuart.

As Burke had discovered back in Menindee, Stuart’s first attempt to cross Australia had ended in failure. Nevertheless, he had travelled more than three-quarters of the way, well and truly lifting the ‘veil’ on Australia’s mysterious centre. There was no inland sea and there were no lost cities or giant mountains—but nor was there just an empty desert wasteland. The truth was somewhere in between. Stuart’s journey revealed ‘barren tracts and dismal ranges’ but also stretches of the ‘finest pastoral country’. To the delight of Adelaide’s business community, the explorer had dispelled the myth of the ‘ghastly blank’: ‘We are not, after all,’ cried the Register, ‘the occupants of a mere strip of country, shut in by the sea on one hand and the impassable desert on the other. There opens before us a new world, with new fields for our enterprise and new outlets for our industry.’

This optimistic interpretation ignored the fact that Stuart had conclusively proved that the ‘empty interior’ was in fact full of indigenous people with established cultural and social networks. The news was not what the land-hungry sheep farmers and prospectors wanted to hear. They continued to maintain that unsettled Australia was ‘terra nullius’—a land owned by no one.

Stuart’s discoveries reignited South Australia’s hopes of running a telegraph line from Asia down through central Australia, but they still needed to establish a suitable port to bring the line ashore. They knew they would have to move fast to secure an advantage. Victoria, smug in the knowledge that its party was well on the way to the coast, had already dismissed Stuart’s first attempt as a fake. Furious, the South Australians suggested that perhaps Stuart had been ‘lying concealed in a cellar in Adelaide’ during his ‘supposed journey’. The row culminated in the Melbourne Lands Department sending a rather impertinent request for ‘any authentic information you may possess as to Mr Stuart’s recent journey’, adding that it would be ‘happy to reciprocate when opportunity presents’. A two-line telegram followed containing Stuart’s final co-ordinates and a promise that, ‘as soon as the map and journal are published information will be available’. In other words—go and buy the book like anyone else! Infuriated by Victoria’s response, the South Australian parliament voted to provide Stuart with another £2500—enough money for him to try again with a much larger party.

The Scotsman was not in the best of health to mount a renewed attack on the Australian interior. He had returned with advanced scurvy, which turned his legs black and inflicted such pain that he admitted he ‘almost wished death would come and release me from my torture’. Taking sun sightings had destroyed his eyesight and left him with periods of double vision and blindness. Yet, with the personal carelessness that afflicts an explorer denied his goals, he volunteered to try again. As Burke had predicted, Stuart began to assemble a new expedition at once.

The Chambers brothers again assisted with horses and supplies, but it took three frustrating months to gather a staff of nine men and a string of forty horses. As usual, rations and equipment were kept to a minimum. Food was limited to dried beef, flour, sugar, tea and whatever the party could gather en route. Only the leader had a tent to work in; the rest of the men slept in swags.

Each horse carried around fifty-five kilograms, with the heaviest items such as ammunition and spare horseshoes being split up amongst the strongest animals. Liquor of any sort was banned—Stuart had not lost his love of spirits, but not even the lure of a whisky bottle could compromise his ruthless style of packing. The only luxury was tobacco. Each man was allowed four ounces (115 grams) a week.

Stuart ran a very different style of expedition from Burke. He travelled hard each day but rested every Sunday to observe the Sabbath. The Scotsman selected his staff based on personal knowledge and previous experience. Discipline was harsh but, judging from the loyalty of his men, it was also fair. Later on, Stuart compiled a written set of rules, which governed all his subsequent expeditions:

All orders are to proceed from the leader, and during his absence, from the second-in-command, who will be in full charge of the party, and whose orders must be obeyed as if they came from me.

No horses are to be abused, kicked or struck about the head. Sore backs etc are to be attended to after unsaddling. No horse to be put out of a walk except of necessity.

When anything is used it must be packed up in the same manner as found and returned to the place whence it came.

Breakfast to be ready at the same time, for which half an hour will be allowed. Immediately after the horses will be brought in and unhobbled. The riding-horses will be first unsaddled, and everything belonging to them placed on the saddles.

No one is to leave the line of march without my knowledge or that of the officer in charge. When leaving camp no one must go without arms and ammunition.

No one is to fire on the natives without orders unless in self-defence.

When on the march no water to be used from the canteens without permission of the leader.

No swearing or improper language shall be allowed.

Each man must sleep with his arms at his side, and in case of attack from the natives a half-circle to be formed three feet apart.

This strict routine meant each expedition ran like clockwork. The horses and their packsaddles were numbered and divided into groups. Each animal learned its place and lined up automatically every morning and evening in the correct order so the foreman could always locate whatever equipment was needed. One of Stuart’s men, Pat Auld, remembered that the party was always ready to leave within half an hour of waking:

When every horse was packed we would mount. Stuart would light his pipe—he was very fond of his pipe—take a bearing with his prismatic compass, replace it in the case, and start. Then Turpin, the bob-tailed cob, would follow close behind and the others would come on, one behind the other, like ducks.

Unlike Burke, Stuart never divided his party unless absolutely necessary and he fretted about anyone separated from the main group. He relied heavily on his two most trusted officers, Francis Thring and William Kekwick. In particular, Thring and his beloved horse Gloag possessed an uncanny ability to find water and the pair saved the party in many desperate situations.

On Friday 11 January 1861, after several weeks’ preparation ‘in the broiling sun’, Stuart’s party set out from the outpost of Mount Margaret Station, north of the Flinders Ranges. Perched on top of the leading horse was the expedition’s pet dog Toby, who had latched onto the party and now refused to stay behind. Even by the usual outback standards, conditions at the beginning of the journey were severe. It was mid-summer and many of the best waterholes had dried out, resulting in several forced marches of many kilometres without water.

‘Poor little Toby’ was the first casualty, upsetting even Stuart, who recorded that his death was ‘regretted by us all, for he had already become a great favourite’. The men battled on against constant thirst, sunburn, chapped lips, sore throats and stinging eyes. The intense glare tortured Stuart in particular and as the party continued north towards the MacDonnell Ranges, there were periods when he could hardly see at all.

On 11 January, Burke’s party rose as usual at dawn, but the daylight seemed sluggish in arriving. An eerie gloom enveloped the camp, unsettling the camels and mystifying the explorers. It was Wills who realised what was happening:

Started at 5 am and in the excitement of exploring fine well-watered country, forgot all about the eclipse of the sun, until the reduced temperature and peculiarly gloomy appearance of the sky drew our attention to the matter. It was then too late to remedy the deficiency, so we made good the day’s journey, the moderation of the mid-day heat, which was only about 86 deg., greatly assisting us.

Even when the eclipse had passed, the conditions remained favourable. Flocks of colourful zebra finches zigzagged across the sky and the silence was punctuated by the peculiar door-creaking cry of the crested pigeons as they flew up from the long grass. The pleasant temperatures and excellent countryside made an agreeable change from the sun-scorched rocky desert: ‘The country traversed has the most verdant and cheerful aspect,’ wrote Wills, there is an ‘abundance of feed and water everywhere’.

Wills’ diary is usually an excellent indicator of the expedition’s morale. When the going was good, his entries contain enthusiastic descriptions of the surrounding landscape. When it was tough, he lapses into silence, often for days at a time. The party had enjoyed several days of good country and fine weather, but on Sunday 13 January, a ragged line began to tear at the horizon. Small but vicious outcrops of sharp stone started to replace the lush grasslands, forcing the explorers to stop and try to protect the camel’s feet: ‘We did not leave camp until half-past seven, having delayed for the purpose of getting the camels shoes on—a matter in which we were eminently unsuccessful.’

Approaching the Selwyn Ranges, the explorers were watched by hostile Kalkadoon warriors. The mountains left the men exhausted and the camels ‘sweating with fear’.

It was Wills’ last entry for six days.

It was the Standish and Selwyn ranges that caused the sharp break in Wills diary. In 1977, two experienced bushmen, Tom Bergin and Paddy McHugh, set out with a couple of Aboriginal friends to recreate the Burke and Wills journey using camels. Tom later described the land around the Selwyns as ‘the cruellest ground I have ever dragged an animal over’.

From a distance the Selwyn Ranges are magnificent—jagged russet-red walls glinting in the sunlight, intersected by valleys of parched yellow Mitchell grass and stunted white gum trees. But the bewildering labyrinth of gorges is crisscrossed with sharp slaty ridges and steep slopes of loose scree. Wills’ map shows that the men tried to scrabble their way westwards through the range, but were forced to turn back and try a route further to the east. For once it was Burke who described their ordeal:

18th January. Still on the ranges, the camels sweating profusely from fear.

20th January. I determined today to go straight at the ranges, and so far the experiment has succeeded well. The poor camels sweating and groaning, but we gave them a hot bath in Turner’s Creek, which seemed to relieve them very much. At last through—the camels bleeding, sweating and groaning.

It wasn’t just the terrain that was dangerous. Burke and Wills were deep inside the territory of the Kalkadoons—one of the fiercest Aboriginal tribes in Australia. In later years, these warriors resisted European settlement by mounting successful guerrilla-style campaigns against miners, pastoralists and policemen.

The men soon realised that the Kalkadoons were watching them from lookouts high up in the mountains. ‘We found here numerous indications of blacks been here,’ remarked Wills, ‘but we didn’t see them.’ Twenty years after the Burke and Wills expedition, a miner out prospecting for copper got to know some of the Kalkadoon tribal elders. They told him that the younger men had been determined to attack and kill the explorers and had prepared themselves by feasting on kangaroo meat, holding ceremonies and painting their chests with ochre and chalk. But when the time came for the ambush, the warriors realised that the men were accompanied by giant roaring beasts, which they assumed must be supernatural. They retreated and watched the party from a safe distance high up in the cliffs.

Ignorant of the drama taking place around them, the explorers slowed dramatically, making just eight or ten kilometres a day. Wills had little time for writing. His diary does not resume in earnest until 27 January when he noted with relief that the party had now crossed the Selwyn Ranges.

As the terrain began to flatten out, the expedition skirted the site of the present-day town of Cloncurry (named after Burke’s cousin Lady Cloncurry) and headed north-west. Several falsely marked trees and vandalised campsites mean there is now confusion about whether the party followed the Cloncurry or the Corella rivers, but Wills’ diary suggests that the Corella is more likely. This route led them north until the end of January. Then, the party crossed Augustus Gregory’s 1856 east-west track along the Top End of Australia, approximately 200 kilometres from the coast.

According to Burke’s instructions, the expedition had fulfilled its official responsibility to explore the country between the Cooper and Gregory’s track. Burke could have turned back with honour. Even more importantly, the party had reached what modern explorers refer to as ‘Drop Dead Day’ or the ‘PNR’ (point of no return). On 30 January Burke should have abandoned the expedition, turned south and headed for home. In terms of time, he was halfway through his allotted schedule of ninety days. In terms of food, the party was using up its supplies faster than anticipated. Every day spent travelling further north diminished the rations available for the return journey and decreased the odds of survival. If Burke was aware of these facts, he chose to ignore them. He once declared he would reach the Gulf even if he got there without the shirt on his back. Now it seemed he was prepared to make the trip without enough food to feed his men.

Did the more circumspect Wills ever raise the subject of retreat? He knew how far they still had to go, and he must have been aware that rations were running short. Did King or Gray ever realise they were in danger or petition their leader to turn back? If such discussions took place, they are not recorded.

Burke thought of his reputation. He thought of Julia waiting for him in Melbourne. He thought of his triumphant return. There was never any doubt that he would press on past the point of no return.