It is painful, if amusing, to read of the disagreement
as to their course in very sight of the lately discovered Australian
Alps, and how, on agreeing to separate and divide the outfit, it was
proposed to cut the tent in half, and the only frying-pan was broken by
both parties pulling at it.
Thomas Boyd, the only survivor of the party in 1883, who was then
eighty-six years old, was the first white man to cross the Murray, which
he did, swimming it with a line in his mouth. In the year named he signed
a document, giving the credit of taking the party through in safety to
Hume. Boyd himself was one of the most active members of the expedition,
and always to the front when there was any work to be done.
The training that Hume received in this, and his former journey,
admirably qualified him to become the companion of Sturt in his first
expedition when he discovered the other great artery of the Murray
system, the Darling. The young explorer was thus singularly fortunate in
having his name connected with the discovery of two of the most important
rivers in Australia. In the trip just narrated he and his companion,
Hovell, had arrested the hasty conclusion that was being formed as to the
aridity of the interior.
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