[Illustration. Ernest Favenc.]

In 1878, a project for a railway line on the land-grant principle between
Brisbane and Port Darwin was originated in the former city. The
proprietor of the leading Brisbane newspaper, Gresley Lukin, organized
and equipped a party to explore a suitable line of country, the object
being to ascertain the nature and value of the land in the neighbourhood
of the proposed line, and the geographical features of the unexplored
portion. The leader was Ernest Favenc, who was accompanied by surveyor
Briggs, G. Hedley, and a black boy. They left Cork station on the
Diamantina, and kept a north-west course through the untraversed country
between that river and the Georgina, or Herbert, as it was then called.
They then crossed the border into South Australia, and struck the creek
which Buchanan had found, and to which the name of Buchanan's Creek was
now given. Leaving this creek at the lowest water, the party struck
north, and, after finding two large but shallow lakes, came, in the midst
of most excellent pastoral country, to a fine lagoon which they named the
Corella Lagoon. The trees on the banks of this lagoon, which was about
four miles long, were at the time of the visit white with myriads of
corella parrots; hence the name. Some three hundred natives were
assembled at this lagoon to celebrate their tribal rites; but they showed
a friendly disposition.

From the Corella Lagoon the expedition proceeded north and discovered a
large creek running from east to west. It proved to be one of the
principal creeks of that region, and was named Cresswell Creek; and a
permanent lagoon on it was named the Anthony Lagoon. Cresswell Creek was
followed down until, like its fellow creek the Buchanan, it too was
absorbed in dry, parched flats. The last permanent water on Cresswell
Creek was named the Adder Waterholes, on account of the large number of
death-adders that were killed there. A dry stage of ninety miles now
intervened between the party and the telegraph line, and the first
attempt to cross, on a day of terrible heat, resulted in a return to the
Adder Camp, three horses having succumbed to the heat, thirst, and the
cracked and fissured arid plains. It being the height of the summer
season, and no water within a reasonable distance, it was evidently
useless to sacrifice any more horses. There was nothing to do, therefore,
but to await at the last camp the fall of a kindly thundershower, by
means o