Copy 1, Volume 1
Three expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia, with descriptions of the recently explored region of Australia Felix, and of the present colony of New South Wales / By Major T. L. Mitchell.
- Thomas Mitchell
- Date:
- 1839
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Three expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia, with descriptions of the recently explored region of Australia Felix, and of the present colony of New South Wales / By Major T. L. Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.
9/440
![“ VVe seek a shore wliich few before have ever dared to scan. An Eden where all things are fair, except the heart of man ; Where flow ers and skies in mingled dyes of borrow’d lustre shine, Butalas! whose sun hath given none to make the soul divine. “ One great and honourable distinction of the present age is the universal and ardent thirst for the acquisition of knowledge with regard to all those matters by which the welfare and happiness of the great family of mankind may he enhanced. One great utilitarian feeling seems to have taken posses¬ sion of the minds of men, so that in all their pursuits some end should appear to he necessary, hy the attainment of which the condition of the generality should be ameliorated or advanced. “ Such an end is the object of all those who, in this age of miracles, seek, hy the paths of science, the difficult heights of distinction or of profit. For tliis the chemist resolves nature back into her simple elements, or wins grand secrets from her hidden combinations. For this the engineer lays down his iron road, with a lofty scorn of hill and dale, which enables man to emulate the eagle in the rapidity and directness of his flight. For this the astronomer pores through his midnight glass, and the political economist dives beneath the surface of things, to survey the causes of social misery or content. All have one great and ennobling anxiety, a wish to add something to that general Slim of happiness of which God has made his creatures susceptible below. “ But of all the labourers in the vineyard of knowledge, who is there who claiiiis so much of our sympathy, who is more disinterested, or more deserv¬ ing of honour, than the traveller who explores, for the first time, regions where nature has held sway, from the creation of the world until now? The services performed, the discoveries made by an individual like this may seem small in comparison with the mighty wonders which science is every day achieving before our eyes ; but if deserting the present we look to the future, how tremendous may be the result of one man’s enterprize and perseverance. “ The traveller is the pioneer of civilization, as .John the Baptist preceded our Saviour, to make tlie rough places plain, and the crooked straight, in order to pave the way for that new dispensation of wdiich he w as the herald, even so does the traveller prepare the way and smooth the path for the intro¬ duction of the same Christianity, whose office hath always been to humanize and soften, and whose influence is necessary to reunite the savage w'anderers of the wilderness to the great brotherhood of humanity. “ What a tremendous era in the history of the wmrld w as the discovery of America ! Fraught with what incalculable results to the destiny of millions. But it was the work of one inspired man, and the like results are not to be expected now'. Though the reaper has done his wmrk, yet there is ample employment for the gleaner : and if it should seem insignificant in compa¬ rison with the great event of which we have spoken, it is not the less deserv¬ ing of that honour that awaits all wdio strive to effect the greatest degree of good which Providence has placed within their reach. “ Such is the author of the volumes now before us, and considering the universal attention which anything connected with Australia excites in the mind of all thinking persons, nothing could be more opportune than the appearance of a survey like the present, wdiich leaving civilization far behind it, has penetrated into those inferior regions, wdiere a white man’s foot had never before trod, in order to furnish data for the guidance of progressive culture and improvement. “ Within the memory of man a British colony has risen in Australia, says our Author, to a high degree of prosperity, and it seems inqiossible to doubt, that at no distant period, the wdiole territory will be inhabited by a pow'er- fnl people, speaking the English language, diffusing around them English civilization and arts, and exercising a predominant influence over Eastern Asia, and the numerous and extensive islands in that ([uarter of the globe. “ Nations, like individuals, have their growth, their perfection, and tlieir decay ; like them, too, they have their children, and, ])erhaps, the time may be when England’s name shall have fallen into oblivion in this (piarter of the world, only to be pei'iietuated in those hereditary titles w hich she has bestowed upon her distant offspring. “ The wilds and uninhabited tracts, whose dreary expanse is now^ traversed b}' the patient foot of the explorer, will then have borroived new' features](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2933567x_0001_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
