id
not last long. Bonney and Hawdon were almost the last overlanding party
to proceed unmolested. Within a comparatively short time afterwards, an
incessant war began to be waged between the blacks and every Overlander
who passed down the Murray. It ended only with the sanguinary battle of
the Rufus. More fortunate than Sturt, Hawdon and Bonney were able to cut
off many of the wearisome bends that had so fatigued Sturt's crew. Sturt
had had to follow every turn and curve, whilst the Overlanders avoided
the bends of the Murray by following the native paths, which spared them
in some cases a journey of one or two days. It was while following a
native path that they discovered and named Lake Bonney. At last they
sighted the Mount Lofty ranges, and after some difficulty in getting
through some rough mallee-covered country, arrived at Adelaide, and
gladdened the residents with the prospect of roast beef. "Up to this
time," says Bonney in his diary, "they had been living almost exclusively
on kangaroo flesh." Eyre, whose name was afterwards so closely allied
with a famous story of thirst and hardship, narrowly escaped with his
life during his overlanding trip.

It was owing to a very natural mistake that Eyre was led astray. He
intended to try a straighter and shorter route than the one round the
Murray, and for a time got on very well, but coming across a tract of dry
country across which he could not take the cattle, he determined to
follow Mitchell's Wimmera River to the north, naturally thinking that it
would lead him easily to the Murray, and would probably prove to be
identical with the Lindsay, as marked on Sturt's chart. From Mitchell's
furthest point, he traced it a considerable distance to the north-west,
and at last found its termination in a large swampy lake, which he called
after the first Governor of South Australia, Lake Hindmarsh. From this
lake he could find no outlet, so taking with him two men, he made an
attempt to push through to the Murray, leaving his cattle to await him.
He found the country covered with an almost impenetrable mallee scrub,
and as there was neither grass nor water for the horses, he was forced to
retreat. He reached his camp after a weary struggle on foot, the horses
having died from thirst. Eyre was then compelled to return and gain the
bank of the Murray by the nearest available route. The bitter
disappointment of the trip was, that when forced to retreat by the
inhospitable nature