Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/611

---

STURT AND G. MACLEAY ON THE MURRUMBIDGEE. 583 waters, fed from the Snowy Mountains, were to bear him to a new and unexpected terminus. Hume could not accompany him, though asked to do so. Not only his skill in the bush, but his knowledge of the natives caused regret at his absence. On the Darling Sturt and Hume had seen many natives, and no hostilities had taken place. Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Macleay was Sturt's companion and friend in his new undertaking. Forming a depot on the Murrumbidgee, near its junction with the Lachlan, Sturt went down the river in a boat. They passed the junction with the river which Hume had named after his own father ; but Hume was not there to recognize it, and Sturt unfortunately, but unwittingly, discarded Hume's patronymic, and named the river the Murray, in honour of Sir George Murray, then Secretary of State. The boat bore them bravely downwards ; they saw hundreds of natives ; they were saved from an attack of one tribe by the heroism of another native (of a tribe recently seen), who dashed across the river and arrested the uplifted arm of a leader. They returned in 1830, amidst much privation and in great prostration, and Sturt published a narrative which proved him as modest as brave. They had traced the united Murrumbidgee, Murray, and Darling waters into Lake Alexandrina, and thence to the sea in Encounter Bay. They had connected their journey across the land with the labours of Flinders, and the footsteps of others. They had found on the coast that the natives had seen white men before, and, unlike their brethren in the interior, had been made to dread fire-arms. Sturt's people were watchful and returned safely; and in all his explorations Sturt never took the life of a native. Governor Darling acknowledged his services by an oflScial notice of his exploits, and the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Macleay, had the pleasure to see his son's name included as that of one who had done the State some service in the expedition. A sad fate awaited the next explorer who visited Lake Alexandrina. Captain Barker, a brother officer of Sturt, had succeeded Captain Stirling as commandant at Baffles Bay, and when that settlement was, like its neighbour at Melville Island, aban- doned in 1829, Barker was stationed at King George's Sound . Governor Darling instructed xi »Qi v?yxA <c>r^<e5. S^^