When the news of their arrival reached Port Phillip, many other Overlanders were encouraged by Bonney’s example to try the shorter route, and the trade in shipping cattle across the straits from Tasmania almost ceased.

Bonney had been born at Sandon, near Stafford, and educated at the Grammar School, Rugby.  He had come out to Sydney in 1834, as clerk to Sir William Westbrooks Burton; but the love of adventure prevailed over his other inclinations, and in 1837, he joined Ebden in squatting pursuits, and eventually distinguished himself as one of the leading Overlanders.  He subsequently settled in South Australia.  From 1842 to 1857 he was Commissioner for Crown Lands, and he afterwards served the State as manager for railways, and in other capacities.  Subsequently he returned to Sydney, where he died.

11.2.  Eyre’s chief journeys.

[Illustration.  Edward John Eyre.]

Edward John Eyre was the son of the Reverend Anthony Eyre, vicar of Hornsea and Long Riston, Yorkshire, and was born on August 14th, 1815.  He was educated at Louth and Sedburgh Grammar Schools.  He came to Australia in 1833, and immediately engaged in squatting pursuits, his enterprising spirit constantly leading him beyond the pale of civilization, where his natural love for exploration rapidly increased.  His fortunes as an Overlander have already been noticed.  On the 5th August, 1839, he left Port Lincoln, on the western shore of Spencer’s Gulf, meaning to penetrate as far as he could to the westward.  Some time before he had made an expedition to the north of Adelaide as far as Mount Arden, a striking elevation to the North-North-East of Spencer’s Gulf.  He had ascended this mount, and from the summit seen a depression which he took to be a lake with a dry bed.  This lake afterwards played an important part in the history of South Australian settlement under the name of Lake Torrens.

Eyre’s party on his westward trip consisted of an overseer, three men, and two natives.  Twenty days after leaving Port Lincoln, they arrived at Streaky Bay, not having crossed a single stream, rivulet, or chain of ponds the whole distance of nearly three hundred miles.  Three small springs only had been found, and the country was covered with the gloomy mallee and tea-tree scrub.  Westward of Streaky Bay the country was still found to be scrubby; so Eyre formed a camp, and taking only a black boy with him, he forced a stubborn way onward, until he was within nearly fifty miles of the western border of South Australia.  To all appearance the country was slightly more elevated than the level scrubby flats he had been traversing, but there was neither grass nor water, and an immediate return became necessary.  Before he got back to Streaky Bay camp, he nearly lost three of his horses.

Leaving Streaky Bay again, he went east of north to the head of Spencer’s Gulf, finding the country on this route a little better, but still devoid of water, the party getting through, thanks only to a timely rainfall.  On the 29th of September, he came to his old camp at Mount Arden, where he wrote:—­