Without waiting for his hand to heal, Stuart rejoined his men at Chambers’ Moolooloo station. On 1 January 1862, flanked by his trusted lieutenants, Francis Thring and William Kekwick, he rode north once more, his right arm dangling by his side. Stuart cursed his disability but in secret joked that it wasn’t his greatest impediment—the politicians had insisted that he take a scientist with him on his latest journey.
Stuart crossed through the MacDonnell Ranges and headed into the dreaded scrub country further north. The heat took its toll on Stuart’s weakened constitution and on several occasions he was forced to send Thring and Kekwick ahead, because he was not well enough to leave camp himself. ‘No rain seems to have fallen here for a length of time,’ wrote Stuart as his hopes of success faded, ‘we have not seen a bird, nor heard a chirrup of any to disturb the gloomy silence of the dark and dismal forest.’ North of Newcastle Waters, the discovery of another chain of ponds, christened Daly Waters, lifted their spirits but the explorer admitted in his diary, ‘I feel this heavy work much more than I did the journey of last year, and feel my capability of endurance giving way.’
Yet Stuart refused to turn back. As his party entered the lush tropical forests of the Australian north, the mulga scrub gave way to stringybarks, woollybutts and pandanus. The men reached the Roper River on 25 June 1862. Calculating that he had reached Augustus Gregory’s east-west track, he knew the coast couldn’t be too far away. But his health was failing fast. ‘I have scarcely been able,’ he wrote, ‘to endure the motion of horseback for four hours at a time.’
Suddenly there was water everywhere, but Stuart’s party soon found the rivers and swamps brought new tortures. Pat Auld recalled:
I have not said a word about our minor troubles, the ants, the sandflies, the common flies, and the mosquitoes…From the time we struck the Roper until we left it, the mosquitoes and flies were terrible. Our hands, wrists, necks and feet were all blistered with their bites, and many earnest inquiries were made as to who could explain their use in this world. One of the party thought they were sent to teach a man how to swear fluently.
The Roper led Stuart and his men into what is now Kakadu National Park. The region, which takes its name from the Gagudju people, is rich in Aboriginal culture. Intersected by an extensive network of rivers, swamps and wetlands, it is packed with 1000 species of plants, fifty native mammals and more than 270 species of birds. Now designated a world heritage area, it is an ancient landscape with the power to entrance even the most hardened explorer. In 1910, the pioneer Stuart Love wrote:
Quite suddenly we came to a steep ravine, and riding down this found ourselves on the bank of a lovely river. All around stretched acres of long, green grass; the river banks, steep and sandy, were covered with iron-bark and many another shady tree and with great clumps of bamboo; the stream itself, blocked just below by granite boulders formed a magnificent pool. Beyond this bar the cool, sweet fresh water flowed away over the stones with a soothing murmur.
But this new paradise was more difficult to cross than Stuart had anticipated. There was so much water that the rivers and wetlands barred their way. Day after day, Stuart forced himself back into the saddle. He even ate on his horse for fear that he might not be able to remount after his meal. Could he reach the north coast before his health collapsed completely?
In Melbourne, the royal commission was over, but throughout the latter half of 1862, Burke and Wills fever still gripped Victorian society. After all there was still the funeral to look forward to.
Ignoring the summer heat, Alfred Howitt was already on his way north to retrieve the bodies of the fallen explorers. For him, the journey was almost routine and on the way he even found time to correspond with his British relatives. About halfway between Menindee and Cooper Creek he left a packet of letters buried in a pickle jar with a sign asking that they be posted by whoever next passed by. One of them duly arrived in England a few months later:
I am slowly progressing towards Cooper’s Creek which I hope to reach in 10 days…I am quite well only when I knock a piece of skin off, the millions of flies make a sore and keep it so—imagine me in a pair of buckskin gloves—an explorer in gloves!
Yet again, Howitt achieved his goals with breathtaking ease. During one reconnaissance mission towards Mount Hopeless he confided, ‘At Cooper’s Creek I have left the main party building a fort, catching the finest fish in this part of the world and gardening.’ His men nicknamed one campsite ‘the Fish Pond’ after they pulled out more than a hundredweight of fish in a single afternoon. Howitt returned a few weeks later to find pumpkins, melons and radishes thriving along the side of the creek. He settled down to a meal of horse steak and fresh vegetables—just a few kilometres away from where Burke and Wills had expired from exhaustion and malnutrition.
After several weeks exploring the Cooper area, Howitt decided it was time to commence the grisly task of exhuming the bodies. Burke and Wills were now little more than skeletons, and even these had been extensively mauled by dingoes. Wills’ skull was missing (except for his lower jaw) and Burke had lost his hands and feet. Howitt collected all the bones he could find, wrapped each set in a Union Jack, and put them in boxes to be taken back to the city. He decided to travel back to Melbourne via Mount Hopeless and Adelaide, as Burke had tried to do eighteen months earlier. Yet again Howitt showed how easy the journey could be with the right supplies and preparation.
When he arrived on 8 December 1862, the mood in the South Australian capital was sombre. Burke may have been a rival but the sight of the tiny black box containing his bones was enough to silence even the most critical commentators. John McDouall Stuart was still out in the desert somewhere far to the north. Nothing had been heard from him for nearly a year.
Thousands lined the streets to watch the remains being carried through the centre of the city. ‘For a time all business was suspended and the streets were silent,’ observed the Register, ‘making most audible the slow tread of the crowd who followed the hearse and the solemn sounds of the military band playing “Dead March in Saul”.’
During his stay in Adelaide, Howitt was forced to undergo a gruelling round of memorial dinners and formal receptions and it was with some relief that he set sail for Melbourne with his macabre cargo. On Sunday, 20 December 1862, with her flag trailing at half-mast, the Havilah sailed into Port Melbourne. She cut through the glassy waters of Port Phillip Bay, bathed in early morning sunshine, and pulled alongside Sandridge Pier. ‘It was,’ decided the Leader, ‘as if the elements were hushed into mournful stillness by the presence of the dead.’
Standing on the docks waiting for the ship’s arrival was a delegation from the Exploration Committee and a small elderly woman who addressed the men in a strong Galway accent. Ellen Dogherty had been Burke’s nurse, his nanny and life-long friend. Now in her seventies, she had decided to travel around the world to see ‘Master Robert’ one more time before she died. But instead of being reunited with her favourite son in the prime of his life, she found herself surrounded by strangers watching his bones being unloaded in a tin box. Four of Howitt’s men carried the remains ashore, placed them in a hearse and watched as they were conveyed to the Royal Society Hall. Once inside, Nurse Dogherty asked to be left alone. She stayed for several hours, leaving members of the Exploration Committee shuffling uncomfortably outside as they listened to the harrowing sound of an old woman weeping.
Eleven days later, on New Year’s Eve 1862, the Royal Society gathered for the formal ceremony of ‘coffining’ the bones of the two dead explorers. There was just one problem. The metal boxes were locked. John Macadam had the only key. It was late afternoon and he was nowhere to be found.
Embarrassment, impatience and anger rippled through the invited audience. Several other keys were tried without success. The members were about to embark upon the undignified process of forcing open the boxes with a small crowbar when Macadam made an unsteady entrance into the hall. The rather dishevelled secretary explained that
he had been so upset, he was ‘overcome with a sudden indisposition’, which prevented him attending earlier. The newspaper reporters had a less delicate explanation. Macadam was drunk.
As the Age put it, ‘It was New Year’s Eve, and Scotchmen on that night of all others are apt to grow “sympathetic”.’ Others were outraged at the sight of ‘the weeping Doctor, overcome by emotions which he had imbibed, staggering over the bones of poor BURKE, and slobbering drunken kisses upon those sacred remains’.
Amongst much ostentatious sniffing and dabbing of eyes, the gruesome ceremony continued:
The remains of Burke were the first opened, and Dr Murray cut the bags and revealed the bones, wrapped in a piece of black alpaca. The nurse of Burke, who was present, now came forward, and it was remarkably affecting to see the care with which she had provided for the melancholy occasion. A clean sheet was spread by her over the iron shell, and a small frilled pillow was then placed for the accommodation of the skull.
The skull was now placed by Messrs Murray and Gillbee, and after it the collar bones, shoulder bones, vertebrae and the remainder of the skeleton was laid out in the shell in conformity with their proper positions. These bones were remarkably perfect, a few of the smaller ones only being missing. Having been properly laid out, poor Mrs Dogherty again pressed forward, and folding over the left side of the sheet, devoutly kissed the skull, sobbing bitterly all the while.
But not everyone was as upset as the nurse. Amongst much ‘crying and kissing’ of Burke’s skull, several members of the Royal Society slipped a couple of his teeth and a few locks of hair into their pockets as souvenirs. (It later became quite common in certain circles to pass around Burke and Wills body parts as a conversation piece at dinner parties.)
To everyone’s relief, Dr Wills senior felt unable to attend the ‘coffining’ of his son. But in the absence of any other relatives no one had thought to provide a winding sheet to wrap up poor Wills. An assistant was dispatched and the explorer was eventually swathed in a piece of old calico. As the Age recognised, it was a sad end for a young man who had died by himself in the desert:
The contrast between this and the preceding ceremony was remarkable and affecting. No pitying female hand waited to perform the last sad offices towards the remains of him to whom Australasia and the world alike are indebted for one of the most interesting and touching narratives ever penned, and all that remained of the head which dictated it was the lower jaw. The remains of Wills were somewhat imperfect; several of the other bones were gone. The vertebrae and skeleton were kept together by the remains of the shirt in which the poor fellow died, and in this condition, it was coffined. Among these bones was a small portion of sandy-coloured beard, sufficient in itself to prove the identity of the remains.
Once this ‘indescribably disgusting’ ceremony was over, the full force of Melbourne’s communal grief could be unleashed. For a period of fifteen days the public was invited to view the explorers’ remains through special glass-topped coffins laid against a spectacular backdrop. As the Melbourne Post recorded:
Long veils of black cloth relieved with white, are draped around the upper part of the walls and windows…the panels in the lower walls are draped with Maltese crosses and on the pillars between the panels are sixteen white shields, bearing the names of the principal explorers of the Australian continent…In the centre of the hall stands the catafalque upon which the coffins containing the bones rest…The catafalque is raised on a dais two feet from the ground, and is reached by four steps covered with black cloth and crimson bands. Above the catafalque is a canopy, surmounted with a heavy plume of white ostrich feathers…and on each side are three large silver candelabras, which will be lighted with gas…
Nurse Dogherty completed the lavish display. Inseparable from Master Robert, she sat next to the coffin entertaining the crowds with bouts of loud and persistent wailing.
Veiled and escorted through in a private viewing, Julia Matthews was one of the first to pay her respects. John King also visited the hall, but on seeing the remains of his dead companions he broke down and had to be removed. Such was the public obsession with Victoria’s dead heroes that up to 7000 mourners a day queued to see the remains. Those with enough influence were actually allowed to climb up beside the coffins and handle the bones. Pickpockets ran through the crowds and stalls sprang up outside the hall selling food, drink and commemorative handkerchiefs. More than 100,000 people filed past the bodies.
This ostentatious display confounded some commentators who found the death pageant vulgar in the extreme. ‘The spectacle which Victoria presents at this moment,’ complained the Examiner, ‘is anything but an edifying one. The bones of its heroic explorers have been brought with infinite trouble and expense from the silent spot where the rude natives vouchsafed the remains a truer sympathy than we, in our boasted civilisation, seem capable of expressing.’
There was a strong feeling that the public displays of sorrow from various members of the Royal Society were designed for ‘a maximum of show and a minimum of feeling’. In the same way that many people follow the exploits of royalty or the antics of movie stars, the residents of Victoria had become obsessed with the Burke and Wills saga. It had been talked about, gossiped about, argued about, criticised, complimented, glorified and speculated upon at every public bar, every private club and on every street corner around Victoria. The public and the press had followed the expedition as it degenerated into a petty but compelling human drama and then watched in amazement as it rose again to attain tragic status. Now the whole of the colony prepared itself for the magnificent final act: Burke and Wills would be buried on 21 January 1863. It would be Victoria’s first state funeral.
Twenty-Two
A Bloodless Triumph
‘Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.’
‘A Psalm of Life’, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—
Wills’ favourite poem
The thrilling prospect of a state funeral established Burke and Wills as the nearest thing Victoria had to heroes such as Nelson and Wellington. Burke had been wise to choose Sir William Stawell as custodian of his personal papers. The chief justice declared all the documents ‘private’ and embarked on a strenuous campaign to ensure Burke’s image survived untarnished. The explorer’s intentions towards Julia Matthews and his outrageous will, leaving her everything, were all covered up. The bequest was largely irrelevant anyway. Burke had few possessions, his bank account contained just 7s 8d and the largest thing he left behind was his debt of £18 5s 3d to the Melbourne Club.
In order to protect his son’s reputation, Dr Wills senior suppressed the last words of his son’s final letter, which stated that his religious views ‘were not in the least bit changed’. Atheism was incompatible with the image of a heroic explorer. In some circles, it had already been suggested that Stuart survived his expeditions because he observed the Sabbath and that Burke died because he did not. (There might have been an element of truth in this, because Stuart rested his horses and men one day a week and Burke did not.)
The funeral also prompted renewed discussion about whether the expedition had been a success. It was a difficult question to answer. Burke had crossed the continent first, but at a cost of seven European lives and one Aboriginal life. The official interpretation was that the explorers had achieved everything they set out to do. Sir Henry Barkly informed the British Colonial Office that the outcome was of ‘the very highest importance, both to geographical science, and to the progress of civilisation in Australia’ and Georg Neumayer declared that the expedition was ‘the most brilliant achievement as yet on record in the annals of Australian exploration’.
But the question endured and was thrown into sharp perspective by the exploits of the four expeditions sent to rescue Burke and Wills. With embarrassing ease, ‘big John McKinlay’ and his party of ten continued
from Lake Massacre to Cooper Creek, and up as far as the Gulf. Here, he had hoped to meet up with the Victoria, but he arrived at the mouth of the Albert River to find the ship had departed. McKinlay was forced to continue overland. He travelled south-east, crossing several crocodileinfested rivers to reach the Queensland coast, where he caught another ship back to Adelaide. The mammoth march through many stretches of difficult territory took him more than a year. McKinlay didn’t lose a man.
William Landsborough had an eventful start to his journey. On 24 August 1861, he left Brisbane with eight men on the brig Firefly, only to be shipwrecked on the east coast of Cape York eleven days later. Everyone including the horses had to be swum ashore while the Victoria pulled the vessel free. Once it had been refloated, the stricken ship was towed as far as the Albert River. Landsborough struck south-west and discovered the Gregory River near the present-day town of Camooweal, before backtracking and heading south across ‘a finely undulating, park-like plateau…richly clothed with the best grasses’. He named it the Barkly Tableland after the governor of Victoria. Landsborough didn’t lose a man.
Accompanied by eleven men, Frederick Walker set out on horseback from Rockhampton on 7 September 1861, and rode north-west to the Flinders River, where he found Burke’s dismal final camp. He followed the old camel tracks south for a while, before running short of food, and turning south-east back to Rockhampton. Walker didn’t lose a man.
The eight deaths on the Burke and Wills expedition now looked more unnecessary than ever. Including Howitt’s journeys, the five rescue missions collectively covered more than 11,000 kilometres through harsh terrain, without a single loss of life. They opened up millions of hectares for pastoralists and miners and lifted the final folds of the ‘shimmering veil’ that had hidden Australia’s central and north-eastern regions for so long.
The Dig Tree Page 31