In travelling the first day, Mr Burke seemed very weak, and complained of great pain in his legs and back. On the second day he seemed to be better, and said that he thought he was getting stronger, but on starting, did not go two miles before he said he could go no further. I persisted in his trying to go on, and managed to get him along several times, until I saw that he was almost knocked up, when he said he could not carry his swag, and threw all he had away.
There was no alternative but to camp for the night. King settled Burke down under a shady coolibah tree next to a waterhole known as Yidniminckanie and then shot a crow for supper. Burke managed to eat a little but he knew he had few hours left. He took out his notebook and wrote: ‘King has behaved nobly. I hope that he will be properly cared for. He comes up the creek in accordance with my request.’ Then he composed a last message to his sister Hessie, revoking his will to Julia Matthews:
Goodbye, my dearest Hessie; when leaving Melbourne, I foolishly made over what I left behind to a young lady with whom I have only a slight acquaintance. I hope you will not take it ill of me. I was wrong and I only meant and mean the bequest to apply to the few monies accruing to me in Melbourne and not to anything derived from home…I hereby cancel the bequest or will I left in Melbourne, and I leave all I possess to my sister Hessie Burke but I wish her to make over any money derived from my Salary or the sale of my things in Melbourne to Miss Julia Matthews…King has behaved nobly, and I hope if he lives that he will be properly rewarded…King staid with me till the last. He has left me at my request, unburied, and with my pistol in my hand. Good-bye again, dearest Hessie, my heart is with you.
As he confronted his own death Burke seems to have recognised the foolishness of his relationship with an actress half his age. Instead of returning a conquering hero to sweep Julia off her feet, he realised that his infatuation would make him a laughing stock in Melbourne society. The last of his dreams was shattered.
Burke handed his notebook and pocket watch to King with instructions that they should be delivered to Sir William Stawell and no one else. He asked King for his pistol and then whispered: ‘I hope you will remain with me until I am quite dead—it is a comfort to know that some one is by; but, when I am dead, it is my wish that you leave me unburied as I lie.’
A testament to Burke’s honourable death, the leader’s last thoughts are for the safety of his remaining companion.
They were Burke’s last coherent words. King stayed with his leader throughout the night. By the morning the Irishman was speechless. At around eight o’clock, he fell into unconsciousness and expired. He was still clutching his revolver in his right hand. Robert O’Hara Burke had died an honourable death. It was the end he had looked for all his life.
For several hours John King sat by Burke’s body and wept. Clothed in rags, without proper food or shelter, he was suffering from beri-beri, scurvy, malnutrition and exhaustion. He was surrounded by desert on all sides and trapped more than 600 kilometres from European civilisation.
At last, he got up. With a last glance at his leader’s corpse, now stiffening in the heat, John King set off along the creek to look for the Yandruwandha. ‘I was very lonely,’ he wrote, ‘and at night usually slept in deserted wurleys belonging to the natives.’ They were now his only hope.
Eighteen
From Inertia to Overkill
‘The Aboriginals, within the limits set by their particular terms of inquiry, use and explanation, knew it all. We, in our quite different terms, can never finally know it.’
Ray Ericksen
By March 1861, nothing had been heard from Burke since his departure from Menindee five months earlier. In official circles, there was little concern. The Royal Society was still confident in its belief that the expedition was a self-sufficient enterprise, furnished with every conceivable luxury. In fact, having given Wright the money to purchase extra horses, the committee didn’t bother to meet at all in January of 1861. The members stirred themselves twice in February to audit their finances but otherwise they sat back and waited to hear of Burke’s victory over Stuart. It was a conquest they all saw as inevitable.
The press too seemed unperturbed. After the ructions in Menindee and Landells’ resignation, many journalists expected the expedition to break up completely. Some thought that crossing the continent ‘might as well be left to Stuart’ and the Argus ominously declared: ‘Unless a light serviceable party is formed out of the present unwieldy expedition, we shall see them in Melbourne shortly; or, perhaps, not at all.’ So reports that Burke had pushed on towards the Cooper with a lighter party were interpreted as good news. The papers assumed the intrepid Irishman was now too far north to send any further dispatches back to Melbourne.
But not everyone was so convinced of Burke’s safety. In March, William Wills’ father started calling for a rescue party to be sent out. Most people regarded Dr Wills senior as a meddling nuisance but his cause was taken up by William Lockhart-Morton, an amateur explorer who had been passed over for leadership of the expedition. Morton attacked the Royal Society remorselessly for its inactivity. In a letter to the Argus, he demanded to know: ‘What has become of the expedition? Surely the committee are not alive to the necessity of sending some one up? Burke has by this time crossed the continent, or is lost. What has become of Wright? What is he doing?’
Whispers began to circulate throughout Melbourne society that Julia Matthews (who continued to beguile Melbourne with her seductive theatre performances) had approached several newspaper editors to lobby for Burke’s rescue. The Argus responded in April by joining the call for a relief party, adding that the public was losing confidence in a Royal Society ‘yet to earn a name for skill in the management of its own or other affairs’. Georg Neumayer jumped to the Society’s defence. He admitted it was ‘rather strange’ that no one had heard from Burke, but he insisted that there was no need to send a rescue boat to the north coast.
In an age of mobile phones, satellite tracking and twenty-four-hour news bulletins, it is difficult to imagine just how remote the expedition was, but it might as well have been in another galaxy. No one in Melbourne could have known that the continent had been crossed at such a heavy price. As rumours and recriminations rumbled around Melbourne, Burke, Wills and King were drifting helplessly along the Cooper, wondering why no one had turned up to save them. It was June 1861 before the Royal Society took any action.
Of course nothing could happen before the establishment of a sub-committee. Just to be on the safe side, the Exploration Committee set up two—the first to organise an overland party, the second to investigate sending a vessel to the north coast. Another undignified squabble ensued about who should lead the relief expeditions. For the overland mission, some factions favoured Neumayer, while others resurrected the name of George Landells. The camel-trader was now ‘loafing about’ in Melbourne, ‘shunned by everyone’, but anxious as ever to claim the moral high ground by charging to Burke’s rescue. The wrangling continued for several days and then produced a surprising result—a highly suitable candidate.
Alfred Howitt had spent several years surveying and prospecting for gold as far afield as Lake Eyre, without ever losing a man. He was experienced, calm, practical, determined and, to the committee’s delight, he was also a Victorian and a gentleman. He was so well qualified that many people lamented the fact that he had not been around to lead the original expedition. The committee instructed Howitt to make his way to the Cooper to see if he could find any trace of the lost explorers. It hoped his journey would be ‘characterised by prudence, caution and energy’.
Howitt made meticulous preparations. ‘As to the difficulties and dangers,’ he wrote, ‘I feel so thoroughly up to my work and I have so carefully chosen and examined the quality—even the smallest article of our outfit…that I have my mind easy on that score.’ The public was fascinated with the rescue operation. Offers of help flooded in. One man suggested that he might supply a large tank mounted on a tower next to the Darl
ing so water could be fed down a long hose out into the desert; another wanted to dispatch a hot air balloon to survey the land ahead. Howitt ignored these flights of fancy but he did avail himself of a less ambitious innovation. Amongst his supplies, a small basket of carrier pigeons settled themselves down for the journey to the Cooper.
There was no time to lose. ‘My last week had been occupied from morning to night,’ Howitt scribbled, ‘running about pushing on arrangements—from saddlers to ironmongers—from tinsmiths to tentmakers etc etc…’ In an astonishing feat of organisation, he left Melbourne on 26 June 1861, a week after the committee appointed him. There were no marching bands, no cheering crowds, no cavorting camels or prancing packhorses. Howitt caught a train at Spencer Street station, bound for Bendigo. From there he would take the coach to Swan Hill, where he would pick up horses and supplies.
Howitt took just three men: Edwin Welch, his surveyor, and two old hands from previous journeys, Alexander Aitken and William Vinning. They carried with them a satchel of letters for Burke. Most were official dispatches from the Exploration Committee, but one was more personal:
Dear Sir,
It is with fear I now address you but I hope my fears will soon be allayed by hearing of you safe and sound. Everything in Melbourne is very dull at present (except the parliament) which is all afire. The crisis has arrived. There is no ministry and Parliament is dissolved. Hoping my dear Sir that you and all your party are safe, that you met with a pleasant journey & good feed which is a great thing in travelling, my dear sir I dare say you almost forget me but if you scrape your various reminiscences of the past, you will recollect the laughing joyous &c.
Cupid
PS My sincere regards to you; all the citizens in Melbourne join in love to you, bless your little heart. C.
In this awkward letter, Julia Matthews attempted to send some comfort to her lover. He would never know that she had not forgotten him.
Three days after leaving Melbourne, Alfred Howitt stopped for refreshment at a coaching inn called the Durham Ox on the Loddon River. A few minutes later, a weatherbeaten young man entered the bar, looking for him. It was William Brahe.
The unflappable Howitt, an accomplished bushman, had often joked before the expedition, ‘I’ll have to rescue Burke yet.’
He poured out the saga of Burke’s dash north into the desert, his own retreat from the Dig Tree and Wright’s disastrous attempts to provide relief. Burke and his three companions were missing, presumed dead. Howitt was horrified. He abandoned his journey north and prepared to return to Melbourne.
A telegraph from Howitt forewarning the Royal Society of Brahe’s news reached John Macadam late on Saturday 29 June. For the rest of the weekend, reports of the expedition’s demise swept through the city. The press speculated on the ‘wildest rumours of death and disaster’, predicting that Burke’s entire party had been ‘dissipated out of being, like dewdrops before the sun’. Forced into crisis management, the Exploration Committee convened an emergency meeting on Sunday 30 June, after which it insisted that all was not lost. Sir William Stawell declared publicly that Burke’s disappearance could be ‘accounted for on many grounds…His men might be knocked up with scurvy, or he might be in some place which it was not advisable to leave until the rainy season set in.’
In the light of this optimistic assessment, it seemed sensible for Howitt to resume his rescue mission immediately, but yet again the Royal Society choked itself with unnecessary complications. As Wills lay dying on the Cooper waiting ‘like Mr Micawber for something to turn up’, the Exploration Committee was doing a fair impersonation of the Circumlocution Office down in Melbourne. Matters were referred up and down through committees and sub-committees. All the time, Howitt sat helpless while the days slid past. It was 4 July before he was authorised to rejoin his men in Swan Hill.
Recognising that so far their expeditions tended to return far smaller than they set out, the Exploration Committee ordered Howitt to take plenty of men in case of scurvy or attack by the Aborigines. Once more, Landells felt ‘honour bound’ to volunteer, ‘out of deep solicitude for the lost party’. Despite promising (or threatening) that he was the only man who could restore all the camels to full health, his offers were rebuffed. ‘If Mr Landells was the only man who could manage the camels,’ Sir William Stawell declared, ‘it was a singular thing…that he should leave Mr Burke to be sacrificed in the manner he had done.’
Once Howitt was on his way, attention returned to the oceangoing rescue mission. Neumayer stood by his promise and offered to sail to the Albert River at once. At first his proposal was welcomed. Politicians like William Stawell and Thomas Embling realised the voyage would also provide a crafty opportunity to survey a site for a northern port, thus strengthening Victoria’s claim to the land to the west of Queensland.
Aware of these ulterior motives, the Queensland government became unusually enthusiastic about looking for Victoria’s lost explorers. It was no coincidence that its candidate to lead a rescue mission was Frederick Walker, a bushman of renowned ruthlessness who, amid campaigns against the local Aboriginal population and drinking bouts of legendary proportions, had opened up huge areas of central Queensland for pastoralists. Neumayer was incensed at being sidelined and renewed his campaign to lead the rescue.
In a surprise intervention, it was Ferdinand Mueller who helped to sway the decision in Walker’s favour. The government botanist had ignored many of the fiascos of the past few months, attending just one committee meeting since the expedition had left Melbourne. Now he re-entered the fray ‘solely from a sense of duty’ and split the committee down the middle. The Victorian government was forced to intervene to break the deadlock. The politicians chose Walker—it was a curious move given their territorial ambitions but they probably wanted to save money more than anything else.
The Exploration Committee compounded its ineptitude by handing complete control of Walker’s expedition to the Queensland government. Realising that this was tantamount to giving ‘a bunch of sheep farmers’ a foothold in one of the most valuable portions of northern Australia, Sir William Stawell exploded. If the Exploration Committee ‘were not fit for the responsibilities of their position’, he thundered, ‘they should retire from that position at once’. With this one careless gesture, Victoria threw away its chance to secure a northern port and change the political map of Australia forever. After such a huge investment in the expedition, it was squandering its hard-won advantage in order to save money in the short term. Only Sir William Stawell seemed to recognise the magnitude of the mistake.
Seizing the chance to consolidate its territory, Queensland appointed not one but two parties. Walker would travel overland from Rockhampton towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. Pastoralist William Landsborough would sail north aboard the Victoria (supplied from Melbourne), then land in the Albert River region and travel south.
As the colonial governments clamoured to assist, the South Australians couldn’t contain their glee. They announced that £1200 would be made available for a rescue mission from Adelaide, with the Register adding that ‘where life was at stake, they felt obliged to do all in their power to relieve those who stood in need of help’. Nothing had been heard from their man, John McDouall Stuart, since he had left the Flinders Ranges in January 1861, but the South Australians were confident he would be nearing the north coast by now. In Stuart’s absence, they turned to another Scotsman to lead their rescue party. John McKinlay was a giant of a man with twenty years’ experience in the bush and an uncanny talent for self-preservation. He was given as his deputy William Hodgkinson, the journalist and former member of Burke’s party, along with five other men, twenty-four horses, four camels, several bullock carts and a flock of sheep. McKinlay was to travel to the east of Lake Eyre up to Cooper Creek and beyond, if circumstances permitted. He left from Gawler to the north of Adelaide on 16 August 1861 after a pigeon-shooting competition and a champagne lunch at the local pub.
After months of
apathy, everyone was striving to outdo one another in the humanitarian stakes. There were now four rescue parties heading in Burke’s direction from all points of the compass. But the rampant incompetency and petty squabbling that had preceded their organisation left the public and the press disillusioned. The Leader concluded that the Royal Society ‘sheltered under the name of a learned society’ and yet it was ‘utterly incapable of managing the details of a foot-race in Richmond Paddock’ let alone an expedition to explore the interior.
As Howitt rode north to the Cooper to look for Burke in July 1861, John McDouall Stuart was six months into his second attempt to cross the continent. So far it had proved a difficult journey. After the loss of Toby the expedition dog from heat exhaustion in January, the weather continued unusually dry and hot. North of the MacDonnell Ranges, he found himself battling ‘very poor country indeed’, which forced him to abandon his usual ‘flying’ tactics. Instead he resorted to setting up base camps while scouting parties searched for water up ahead.
By the middle of May, Stuart had passed his previous northernmost point near Attack Creek but found himself entangled in bullwaddie and lancewood scrub, a nasty combination that has been described as nature’s attempt to grow a barbed wire fence. It was vicious terrain. Men and animals were cut to ribbons as they tried to find a way through. Stuart rode for hours at a time, until his horse tottered with thirst and he could barely keep his seat. On 20 May, just as the Scotsman began to think his journey was a ‘hopeless case’, he stumbled across a series of waterholes that he christened Newcastle Waters. Now at least, he had a base from which to explore further.
Each night, no matter how tired or sick he was, Stuart retired to his tent with his precious pipe to work on his charts and sketches. The overland telegraph was never far from his thoughts, and the discovery of Newcastle Waters convinced him that it was feasible to construct a line via the MacDonnell Ranges and through the waterless scrub towards the north coast. ‘For a telegraphic communication,’ he wrote, ‘I should think that three or four wells would overcome this difficulty.’ Later, R. R. Knuckey, a government surveyor who used Stuart’s maps, commented:
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