iver found its way
into the Southern Ocean, either in or about the Great Bight. Granted that
the outflow of some of our large Australian rivers had been overlooked by
the navigators, the local conditions were such as to render it virtually
certain that any such omission was not made along this part of the south
coast. Here there was to be found no fringe of low, mangrove-covered
flats, studded with inlets and saltwater creeks, thus masking the
entrance of a river. In some parts, a bold forefront of lofty precipitous
cliffs, in others a clean-swept sandy shore, alone faced the ocean.
Flinders, constantly on the alert as he was for anything resembling the
formation of a river-mouth, would scarcely have been mistaken in his
reading of such a coast-line. And the journey resulted in no knowledge of
the interior, even a short distance back from the actual coast-line. The
conjectures of a worn-out, starving man, picking his way painfully along
the verge of the beach, were, in this respect, of little moment.

Eyre, however, won for himself well-deserved honour for courage and
perseverance, in as exacting circumstances as ever beset a solitary
explorer. The picture of the lonely man in his plundered camp bending
over his murdered companion, separated from his fellow-men by countless
miles of unwatered and untrodden waste, appeals resistlessly to our
sympathies. But admiration of Eyre's good qualities has blinded many to
his errors of judgment.

He was accorded a generous public welcome on his return to Adelaide, and
was subsequently appointed Police Magistrate on the Murray, where his
inland experience and knowledge of native character were of great
service. When Sturt started on his memorable trip to the centre of
Australia, Eyre accompanied his old friend some distance. But his
activities were exercised in other fields than those of Australian
exploration during his after life. He was Lieutenant-Governor of the
Province of New Munster in New Zealand under Sir George Grey from 1848 to
1853, when that colony was divided into two provinces. He was afterwards
Governor-General of Jamaica, where the active and energetic measures he
took to crush the insurrection of 1865 incited a storm of opposition
against him in certain quarters, and he played a leading part in the
great constitutional cases of Philips v. Eyre, and The Queen v. Eyre. He
died at Steeple Aston, in Oxfordshire, in 1906.

CHAPTER 12. ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE CENTRE