on
every peak all along the coast, shed their ruddy light over the blue
waters, illumining here and there some lofty crest, and adding a weird
beauty to the enchanting scene.

[Illustration: MONUMENT TO BURKE AND WILLS.]

"America has no monuments," say our Transatlantic cousins, "because it
is but two hundred years old." Well, Australia, with little more than
three-quarters of a hundred, has already its monument--a beautiful
bronze monument erected to the memory of the explorers Burke and Wills
on a lofty pedestal of elegant workmanship, and occupying a commanding
eminence in the city of Melbourne. The figures, two in number, are of
more than life size, one rising above the other--the chief, with noble
form and dignified air, fraternally supporting his younger confrere. The
pedestal shows three bas-reliefs of exquisite design--one the return to
Cooper's Creek,

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF: RETURN TO COOPER'S CREEK.]

where the torn garments and emaciated limbs tell with sad emphasis the
woeful tale of hardship and toil through which the heroic explorers had
been passing; another exhibiting the subsequent death of Burke;

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF: DEATH OF BURKE.]

and the third the finding of the remains.

[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF: FINDING OF BURKE.]

Burke and Wills, to whom belongs the honor of being the first explorers
that crossed the entire continent of Australia, extending their
researches from the Australian to the Pacific Ocean, set out on the 20th
of August, 1860, with a party of fifteen hardy pioneers upon their
perilous mission. Burke was in the prime of life, a man of iron frame,
dauntless courage and an enthusiasm that knew neither difficulty nor
danger. Wills, who belonged to a family that had already given one of
its members to Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, to find a martyr's
grave among the eternal icebergs of the north, was somewhat younger, and
perhaps less enthusiastic, but was endowed with a rare discretion and
far-seeing sagacity that peculiarly fitted him to be the friend and
counselor of the enthusiastic Burke in such an undertaking. All
Melbourne was in excitement: the government gave fifty thousand dollars,
various individuals ten thousand, to aid the enterprise; and every heart
was aglow with aspirations for their success as the little band of
heroes waved their adieus and turned their faces outward to seek paths
hitherto untrodden by the white man's foot. Besides horses, twen