mings. The continent was crossed, the Gulf
reached, and the road indicated by the hardy pioneers, which their
successors will find it comparatively easy to level and macadamize.
Already the stimulant of the Burke and Wills catastrophe has called
into active exercise the successive expeditions and discoveries of
Howitt, Norman, Walker, Landsborough, and McKinlay. Others will
rapidly follow, with the characteristic energy and perseverance of
the Saxon race. Now that time has, to a certain extent, allayed the
poignant grief of those who are most nearly and dearly interested
in the fate of the original explorers; when first impulses have
cooled down, and the excitement of personal feelings has given way
before unquestionable evidence, we may safely ascribe, as far as
human agencies are concerned, the comparative failure of the
enterprise to the following specific causes:--

1. The double mistake on the part of the leader, of dividing
and subdividing his forces at Menindie and Cooper's Creek;

2. The utter unfitness of Wright for the position in which he was
placed;

3. The abandonment by Brahe of the depot at Cooper's Creek;

4. The resolve of the surviving explorers to attempt the route by
Mount Hopeless, on their homeward journey;

And lastly, to the dilatory inefficiency of the Committee, in not
hurrying forward reliefs without a moment's delay, as the state of
circumstances became gradually known to them.

It is not so easy to estimate the relative quantity of blame which
ought justly to attach to all who are implicated. Each will
endeavour to convince himself that his own share is light, and that
the weight of the burden should fall on the shoulders of some one
else. Meanwhile, there remain for the heroic men who died in
harness without a murmur in the unflinching exercise of their duty,
an undying name, a public funeral, and a national monument; the
unavailing sympathy and respect which rear an obelisk instead of
bestowing a ribbon or a pension; recorded honours to the
unconscious dead, in place of encouraging rewards to the triumphant
living. A reverse of the picture, had it been permitted, might have
been more agreeable; but the lesson intended to be conveyed, and
the advantages to be derived from studying it, would have been far
less salutary and profitable.

CHAPTER 14.

Letters of sympathy and condolence; from Sir Henry Barkly; Major
Egerton Warburton; A.J. Baker, Esquire; P.A. Jennings, Esquire;