Journal of Edward John Eyre’s Final Expedition, The: 1840 – 1841

A journal of Edward John Eyre’s final expedition. Illustrated. #0921

In January 1840 Eyre and two companions took sheep and cattle by sea to King George Sound and then drove them overland to the Swan River Settlement. On his return to Adelaide in May he brought with him an Aborigine, Wylie; there he found that a committee had been formed to organize an expedition to explore an overland route to the west. Eyre offered his services and also undertook to find a third of the horses and pay a third of the expenses. (In fact he paid almost exactly half.) Eyre, however, persuaded the colonists that it would be better to attempt to open up the country to the north, knowing from his previous journeys how difficult it would be to drove stock to the west. The objective of the expedition therefore became, in Governor George Gawler‘s words, ‘the discovery of the interior of Australia’. On 18 June Eyre set out from Adelaide at the head of the expedition, which within a week was made up of six white men, including Baxter, Eyre’s assistant, E. B. Scott, two Aborigines, 13 horses, 40 sheep, and stores for three months; more stores were sent up to the head of Spencer Gulf in the government cutter Waterwitch, to await the arrival of the overland party.

He struck north from his base at Mount Arden along the Flinders Range, and then in several exhausting thrusts reached Lake Torrens to the west, a southern arm of Lake Eyre to the north, and Mount Hopeless to the east. Disappointed, but with no intention of retiring, Eyre decided ‘by crossing over to Streaky Bay to the westward, to endeavour to find some opening leading towards the interior in that direction’. Accordingly he sent Baxter with two men and an Aboriginal to Streaky Bay, and himself took the remainder of the expedition to Port Lincoln. There he sent Scott by boat to Adelaide to request more provisions and permission from his committee to continue to the west. Scott was also instructed to bring Wylie back from Adelaide. By 3 November he rejoined Baxter and his party at Streaky Bay, and they moved on to found a depot at Fowler’s Bay.

From there, on the third attempt, Eyre reached the head of the Bight, but the difficulties involved made him decide to send all the members of the expedition back to Adelaide, except for Baxter, Wylie and two South Australian Aboriginal men; with them he intended to traverse the 850 miles (1368 km) to King George Sound, with a determination ‘either to accomplish the object I had in view, or perish in the attempt’. With eleven pack-horses, the small party left Fowler’s Bay on 25 February 1841. On 12 March they reached good water at what is now called Eucla, ‘after having passed over one hundred and thirty-five miles (217 km) of desert country, without a drop of water in its whole extent, and at a season of the year most unfavourable for such an undertaking’. As they continued round the Bight they met with the same difficulties of terrain and lack of water, but by the middle of April they were also suffering severely from cold, as they had had to discard most of their clothing. On the night of 29 April two of the natives murdered Baxter and disappeared with most of the provisions and all the serviceable fire-arms. ‘At the dead hour of night, in the wildest and most inhospitable wastes of Australia, with the fierce wind raging in unison with the scene of violence before me, I was left, with a single native, whose fidelity I could not rely upon, and who for aught I knew might be in league with the other two, who perhaps were even now, lurking about with the view of taking away my life as they had done that of the overseer’.  In 1997 the Ngadju-Mirning man Arthur Dimer said it was Eyre who killed Baxter in a fit of rage because Baxter was drunk; the two South Australian Aboriginal people fled in fright and were speared by Mirning people who were observing the expedition’s progress.

For over a month Eyre and Wylie struggled on to the west, until on 2 June at Thistle Cove (near Esperance) they sighted the French whaler Mississippi which picked them up and gave them several days hospitality and replenished their stores, for Eyre insisted on completing his overland journey to King George Sound. Moving on through heavy rains and cold weather, they reached Albany on 7 July. For this incredible journey Eyre was awarded the founder’s gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1847.