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25 attempt the passage through the marsh. He then engaged the able services of our distinguished bushman, Mr. Hume. However ener getic his display of will, he had no collision with the brave and gentle Sturt. That eminent explorer, who revealed one colony and discovered the most important rivers of two others, has exhibited that fearlessness of danger, that love of enterprise, and that benevolence of disposition which have no less endeared him to the savage men of the forest than to his own admiring countrymen. Few men in their passage through life have enjoyed more real happiness. To the pleasures of a widely spread and alfectionate friendship, he added the charms of one of the most joyous and lovely of homes. Long may the worthy veteran live to enjoy the pension awarded him by the colonists of South Australia ! Accompanied by Hume, he left Sydney in November, 1828, pene trated the marshes of the Macquarie, dissolved the chimera of the Inland Sea, and followed its stream northward to a river which he named after General Darling. In November the following year he became connected with Port Phillip Story. With his friend Mr. McLeay, the Naturalist, and six men he set out to examine the Mur- rumbidgee. Finding his whaleboat insufficient, he constructed a skiff to carry some of the provisions, and which was attached to the other boat by a rope. But meeting with accidents from snags it was abandoned ; through one upset of the skiff the salt provisions were spoiled. It was Sturt’s rule to row from sunrise to 5 o’clock. Each night the party slept on shore. On one occasion the blacks came stealthily down, and relieved them of their fryingpan, their cutlasses and five tomahawks. They might have fallen victims another time through the fascination of native beauty. Some women stood on the river bank displaying their charms, and with syren words and gestures tempting them to land. But, in the distant scrub, behind these loving allurings, were certain bushy beards and spear points, which completely neutralized the softer emotions, if any existed, in the breasts of the white men. Passing a flat country of reeds, they were suddenly carried into a noble stream above 300 feet wide. This was named the Murray, after Sir George, the secretary for the colonies. When it was subsequently ascertained that Hume’s river Hume was identical with Sturt’s Murray, the captain referred to it in these straight forward terms : “ I by no means wish to take away from the credit of another, much less from that of Mr. Hume, whose superior talents as an ex plorer I have ever been ready to admit. When I named the Murray, f Deuttches Insutut 1 I fflr Landerkunde I Buchcrei
