SKETCH. Ixxxv The progress of settlement in that portion of the interior which not long ago was branded on the map as the Great Central Desert attracts so little attention, even among ourselves, that it is not surprising if it is wholly unknown beyond our own borders. It is only by an accident, as it seems, that any definite intelli- gence reaches us from the remote points occupied as outposts by the invaders of the wilderness. While these pages are being printed, a remarkable illustration of this fact presents itself in the shape of a telegram from Buriowrie, a post and telegraph station eight hundred and seventy miles north-west of Sydney, announcing the arrival of a caravan of sixty-three camels at Tibooburra a few days before, laden with goods for Euriowrie and Queensland. '^ They formed quite a procession through the town, each fastened by a gaily coloured cord in single file, the Afghan drivers being gorgeously attired in many coloured silks, shawls, gold lace, and turbans. The team has been thirty-six days coming from Farina on the trans-continental railway, and only one beast was lost on the trip of three hundred and fifty-five miles." A glance at the map will show that this Oriental substi- tute for the old bullock-team travelled through the country pene- trated by Byre in 1840, when he reached the summit of Mount Hopeless, and by Sturt in his famous journey of 1844-5, when he discovered Oooper^s Creek. Bach of those adventurous explorers, whom no difficulty or danger could deter, returned in despair from the scene of desolation that lay before him. Now we have a trans-continental line of railway from Adelaide to Port Darwin in course of construction through the heart of it. Farina being one of its stations — ^f our hundred and seven miles north from the starting point, and near the range from which Eyre looked round him, in vain, to find some means of crossing Lake Torrens to the unknown country beyond it. Digitized by Google
