hem, they suddenly found
themselves confronted with snow-capped mountains. There, under the
brilliant sun of an Australian summer's day, rose the white crests of
lofty peaks that might have found fitting surroundings amidst the
chilling splendours of some far southern clime, robed as they were for
nearly one-fourth of their height in glistening snow.

Skirting this range, which received the name of the Australian Alps, the
explorers, after wandering for eight days across its many spurs, came
upon a fine, flowing river, which Hume named after his father, the Hume.
This river was destined to be re-named the Murray, when its course was
eventually followed to the ocean.*

*[Footnote.] See Chapter 6.

There being no safe ford, a makeshift boat was constructed with the aid
of the serviceable tarpaulin, and the Hume was crossed, close to the site
of the present town of Albury. Still passing through good pastoral land,
watered by numerous creeks, they crossed a river which was named the
Ovens, and on the 3rd of December they came to another, named by them the
Hovell, but now called the Goulburn; and on the 16th of December they
reached their goal, the shore of the Southern Ocean, at the spot where
Geelong now stands.

This expedition had a great and immediate influence on the extension of
Australian settlement. Within a few years after the chief surveyor had
characterised the western interior, beyond a certain limit, as unfitted
for human habitation, and had expressed his opinion that the monotonous
flats across which he vainly looked for any elevation extended to the
sea-coast, snowy mountains, feeding the head tributaries of perennial
rivers had been discovered to the southward of his track.

Hume was exceptionally fitted for the work of exploration at this
particular juncture in colonial history. Born and reared in the land, he
was well competent to judge justly of its merits and demerits; his
opinion was not likely to be tainted by the prejudices formed and
nourished in other and different climes. The history of Australian
exploration was then a statement of hasty conclusions, formed perhaps
under certain climatic circumstances to be falsified on a subsequent
visit when the conditions were radically different. In Hume's case, there
was no ill-founded conclusion of the availability of the
freshly-discovered district. The journey just recorded at once added to
the British Colonial Empire millions of acres of arable land