d give a rapid epitome
(which may contain some minor errors) of what they had done, and which
is here put forward by way of introduction.

Most of the illustrations, except one or two photographs, were
originally from very rough sketches, or I might rather say scratches,
of mine, improved upon by Mr. Val Prinsep, of Perth, Western
Australia, who drew most of the plates referring to the camel
expeditions, while those relating to the horse journeys were sketched
by Mr. Woodhouse, Junr., of Melbourne; the whole, however, have
undergone a process of reproduction at the hands of London artists.

To Mrs. Cashel Hoey, the well-known authoress and Australian
correspondent, who revised and cleared my original manuscripts, I have
to accord my most sincere thanks. To Mr. Henniker-Heaton, M.P., who
appears to be the Imperial Member in the British Parliament for all
Australia, I am under great obligations, he having introduced me to
Mr. Marston, of the publishing firm who have produced these volumes. I
also have to thank Messrs. Clowes and Sons for the masterly way in
which they have printed this work. Also Messrs. Creed, Robinson,
Fricker, and Symons, of the publishing staff. The maps have been
reproduced by Weller, the well-known geographer.

(ILLUSTRATION: Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
"Victoria D.G. Britanniarum Regina, 1837, Patrona.
Or, Terras Reclusas, Ernest Giles, 1880.")

INTRODUCTION.

Before narrating my own labours in opening out portions of the unknown
interior of Australia, it will be well that I should give a succinct
account of what others engaged in the same arduous enterprise around
the shores and on the face of the great Southern Continent, have
accomplished.

After the wondrous discoveries of Columbus had set the Old World into
a state of excitement, the finding of new lands appears to have become
the romance of that day, as the exploration by land of unknown regions
has been that of our time; and in less than fifty years after the
discovery of America navigators were searching every sea in hopes of
emulating the deeds of that great explorer; but nearly a hundred years
elapsed before it became known in Europe that a vast and misty land
existed in the south, whose northern and western shores had been met
in certain latitudes and longitudes, but whose general outline had not
been traced, nor was it even then visited with anything like a
systematic geographical object. The fact o