hrough the
preliminary agony of a practical realisation of the dangers they so
graphically describe, and from which, perhaps, they might be the very
first to flee, though their heroes are made to appear nothing less
than demigods. Strange as it may appear, it seems because the tales of
Australian travel and self-devotion are true, that they attract but
little notice, for were the narratives of the explorers NOT true we
might become the most renowned novelists the world has ever known.
Again, Australian geography, as explained in the works of Australian
exploration, might be called an unlearned study. Let me ask how many
boys out of a hundred in Australia, or England either, have ever read
Sturt or Mitchell, Eyre, Leichhardt, Grey, or Stuart. It is possible a
few may have read Cook's voyages, because they appear more national,
but who has read Flinders, King, or Stokes? Is it because these
narratives are Australian and true that they are not worthy of
attention?

Having well-nigh exhausted the list of the early explorers in
Australia, it is necessary now to turn to a more modern school. I must
admit that in the works of this second section, with a few exceptions,
such stirring narratives as those of the older travellers cannot be
found. Nevertheless, considerable interest must still attach to them,
as they in reality carry on the burning torch which will not be
consumed until by its light the whole of Australia stands revealed.

The modern explorers are of a different class, and perhaps of one not
so high as their predecessors. By this remark I do not mean anything
invidious, and if any of the moderns are correctly to be classed with
the ancients, the Brothers Gregory must be spoken of next, as being
the fittest to head a secondary list. Augustus Gregory was in the West
Australian field of discovery in 1846. He was a great mechanical, as
well as a geographical, discoverer, for to him we are indebted for our
modern horses' pack-saddles in lieu of the dreadful old English
sumpter horse furniture that went by that name; he also invented a new
kind of compass known as Gregory's Patent, unequalled for steering on
horseback, and through dense scrubs where an ordinary compass would be
almost useless, while steering on camels in dense scrubs, on a given
bearing, without a Gregory would be next to impossible; it would be
far easier indeed, if not absolutely necessary, to walk and lead them,
which has to be done in almost all ca