Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1898 — AUSTRALIAN EXPLORER GONE. [ARTICLE]

AUSTRALIAN EXPLORER GONE.

Ernest Giles, Hero of Many Perilous Feats, Passes Away. One of the greatest of Australian explorers has passed away, if not “unhonored and unsung,” at least In unde-, served obscurity. For Ernest Giles well and truly did his share of the work of lifting the veil of mystery that for so long enshrouded the interior of the Island continent and his name stands high with those of such gallant and undaunted hardy pioneers of colonization as the ill-fated Burke and Wills, who perished so miserably; Sir Thomas Mitchell, Sturt, Kennedy, Dr. Leichhardt and Sir George Grey. His contributions to our geographical knowledge were such as should have earned him substantial reward and honorable recognition; for he devoted the best years of his life to his work. Tall, muscular and commanding, sitting his horse as only a born bushman sits, he was the beau ideal of a leader of men bent on desperate and daring enterprise—to fight with the terrors of the unknown desert and the agonies and horrors of thirst. Twenty-five years ago he made his first success as an explorer, when he led a party through unknown country 300 miles westward from the telegraph line that traverses the center of Australia from north to south. A second journey, initiated by Baron Von Muller, who had formed a high opinion of Giles’ resourcefulness and daring under the most trying circumstances, resulted in his adding to the blank map of the Interior a knowledge of 600 miles of new country. In this journey he was accompanied by only four other white men, some aboriginals and twenty-five horses. The hardships they endured were terrible, and before reaching the west coast (after being out nearly a year from their starting point) they had to kill and live upon the few horses that remained alive. In 1875 the generosity of Sir Thomas Elder enabled him to start on a third expedition, which was amply equipped and provisioned for eighteen months. For hundreds of miles the route of the expedition lay through a succession of fearful waterless deserts. Fortunately, on this occasion he had camels, or else he and his party would never have returned. Once they traveled for sixteen days over one sandy stretch of 330 miles without discovering water. Yet he brought this daring trip of 2,400 miles to a successful issue by reaching one of the outlying settlements in western Australia, and then, after restng, he struck north about 200 miles of his first route and returned to south Australia. For this feat he was rewarded with the somewhat barren honor of the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. Early in 1889 he published one of the most interesting of the many books written on Australian exploration, “Australia Twice Traversed.” His knowledge of the wild black tribes of the interior was not excelled by any other man in Australia, and equaled only by that of Ernest Favenc, another fellow who has done great work for his ‘adopted country, and, like Giles and the rest of these devoted men, earned nothing for the benefit he has conferred upon the Australian people. Poor Giles, a year ago, was given an an official position on Coolgardie gold field by the government of western Australia. A severe cold which developed into pneumonia carried off one of the most resolute and undaunted men that ever looked across the heart-break-ing expanse of an Australian desert.— Pall Mall Gazette. «