20, 1860. That was the first mistake, for
the heat and drought were then setting in. The men marched on
undismayed, however, crossed Australia's largest river, the Murray, and
came to its tributary, the Darling. There a permanent camp was pitched,
and the larger part of the caravan was left there. Burke, Wills, and six
other Europeans went on with five horses and sixteen camels towards the
north-west, and in twenty-one days reached the river Cooper, which runs
into Lake Eyre.

Here another camp was set up, several excursions were made in the
neighbourhood, and a messenger was sent to the Darling to hurry up the
men left behind. The messenger loitered, however, one week passed after
another, and when nothing was heard of the men, Burke decided to march
northwards with only three companions, Wills and the two servants King
and Gray, six camels, two horses, and provisions for three months, and
cross the continent to the coast of Queensland on the Gulf of
Carpentaria. The other four were to remain with their horses and camels
where they were until Burke came back, and were to leave the place only
if absolutely obliged to do so.

All went well at first, but the country was troublesome and rough, wild
and undulating (Plate XXXVIII.). As long as the explorers followed the
sandy bed of the Cooper River they found pools of water in sufficient
numbers. At midday the temperature in the shade was 97 deg., but it fell at
night to 73 deg., when they felt quite cold.

Then they passed from bed to bed of temporary streams, carrying water
only in the rainy season, and there the usual pools of water remained in
the shade of dense copses of grass-trees, boxwood and gum-trees or
eucalyptus. The last named were evidently not of the same species as the
world-renowned blue gum-tree which occurs in Victoria and Tasmania, for
this dries up marshes and unhealthy tracts and grows to its height of 65
feet in seven years. But the giant gum-tree is still more remarkable,
for it attains a height of over 400 feet, and another species of
eucalyptus has reached 500 feet.

The party had also to cross dreary plains of sand and tracts of clay
cracked by the drought, and there they had to have their leather sacks
filled with water. Sometimes they saw flocks of pigeons flying
northwards, and were sure of finding water soon if they followed in the
same direction. At some places there had been rain, so that a little
grass had sprung up; in others the saltb