won and their task was done,
But they came not back again.

We cannot break their calm, grand sleep,
By fond endearing cries;
We cannot smile them back again,
However bright our eyes;
But we may lowly bend the head,
Though not asham'd of the tears
We sadly shed, for the lowly dead,
Cut down in their bloom of years.

And laurel garlands, greener
Than war's heroes ever bought
With the blood of slaughtered thousands,
Shall by loving hands be brought;
And sanctified by many prayers,
Laid gently in their grave,
That the coming race may know the place
Where sleep our martyr'd brave.

--F.M. HUGHAN.

. . .

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

The narrative I have felt called upon to give to the public, founded
on an unexaggerated statement of facts, with many of which no other
person could have been so well acquainted, is now concluded,--with
the natural anguish of a father for the loss of a son of whom he
was justly proud, and who fell a victim to incapacity and
negligence not his own. Still, I have no desire to claim merit for
him to which he is not entitled, or to abstract an iota from what
is justly due to others. The Report of the Royal Commission is to
be found at full in the Appendix; unaccompanied necessarily by the
mass of conflicting evidence, trustworthy, contradictory,
misinterpreted or misunderstood, on which it was based. The members
who composed that court were honourable gentlemen, who investigated
patiently, and I have no doubt conscientiously. But there were many
present, with myself, who witnessed the examinations, and wondered
at some points of the verdict. We find the judgment most severe on
the leader who sacrificed his life, and whose mistakes would have
been less serious and fatal had his orders been obeyed. There is
also a disposition to deal leniently with the far heavier errors
and omissions of the Exploration Committee; and an unaccountable
tendency to feel sympathy for Brahe, whose evidence left it
difficult to decide whether stupidity, selfishness, or utter
disregard of truth was his leading deficiency.

It now only remains to sum up a brief retrospect of the active
spirit of discovery set astir, and not likely to die away, as a
sequel to the great Burke and Wills Expedition, for by that name it
will continue to be known. We have already seen that the Victoria
steamer, under Commander Norman, was sent round to the Gulf of