



Produced by Sue Asscher and Robert Prince





SUCCESSFUL EXPLORATION

THROUGH THE INTERIOR OF

AUSTRALIA,

FROM MELBOURNE TO THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA.

FROM THE JOURNALS AND LETTERS OF

WILLIAM JOHN WILLS.

EDITED BY HIS FATHER, WILLIAM WILLS.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY.
1863.

DEDICATED,

BY PERMISSION,

TO HIS GRACE

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, K.G.,
ETC., ETC., ETC.

BY HIS GRACE'S

FAITHFUL SERVANT,

WILLIAM WILLS.
JANUARY, 1863.

PREFACE.

A life terminating before it had reached its meridian, can scarcely
be expected to furnish materials for an extended biography. But the
important position held by my late son, as second in command in
what is now so well-known as the Burke and Wills Exploring
Expedition across the Island Continent of Australia; the
complicated duties he undertook as Astronomer, Topographer,
Journalist, and Surveyor; the persevering skill with which he
discharged them, suggesting and regulating the march of the party
through a waste of eighteen hundred miles, previously untrodden by
European feet; his courage, patience, and heroic death; his
self-denial in desiring to be left alone in the desert with
scarcely a hope of rescue, that his companions might find a chance
for themselves;--these claims on public attention demand that his
name should be handed down to posterity in something more than a
mere obituary record, or an official acknowledgment of services.

A truthful, though brief, memoir of my son's