e, from time to time, sent out to
rescue the missing explorers, if perchance they might still be wandering
with the blacks in the interior; but no traces of the lost company have
ever been brought to light.

#9. Mitchell.#--Whilst Leichardt was absent on his first journey, Sir
Thomas Mitchell--the discoverer of the Glenelg--had prepared an
expedition for the exploration of Queensland. Having waited till the
return of Leichardt, in order not to go over the same ground, he set out
towards the north, and, after discovering the Culgoa and Warrego--two
important tributaries of the Darling--he turned to the west. He
travelled over a great extent of level country, and then came upon a
river which somewhat puzzled him. He followed the current for 150 miles,
and it seemed to flow steadily towards the heart of the continent. He
thought that its waters must eventually find their way to the sea, and
would, therefore, after a time, flow north to the Indian Ocean. If that
were the case, the river--which the natives called the Barcoo--must be
the largest stream on the northern coast, and he concluded that it was
identical with the Victoria, whose mouth had been discovered about nine
years before by Captain Stokes. He, therefore, provisionally gave it the
name of the Victoria River.

#10. Kennedy.#--On the return of Mitchell, the further
prosecution of exploration in these districts was left to his
assistant-surveyor--Edmund Kennedy--who, having been sent to trace the
course of the supposed Victoria River, followed its banks for 150 miles
below the place where Mitchell had left it. He was then forced to return
through want of provisions; but he had gone far enough, however, to show
that this stream was only the higher part of Cooper's Creek, discovered
not long before by Captain Sturt. This river has a course of about 1,200
miles; and it is, therefore, the largest of Central Australia. But its
waters spread out into the broad marshes of Lake Eyre, and are there
lost by evaporation.

In 1848 Kennedy was sent to explore Cape York Peninsula. He was landed
with a party of twelve men at Rockingham Bay, and, striking inland to
the north-west, travelled towards Cape York, where a small schooner was
to wait for him. The difficulties met by the explorers were immense;
for, in these tropical regions, dense jungles of prickly shrubs impeded
their course and lacerated their flesh, while vast swamps often made
their journey tedious and unexp