How attractive to lie down and rest for ever on the parched grass, with some thin bush to keep off the sun.  In the other extreme a shepherd of the hills, caught in a snowstorm, folds him in his plaid and goes to the sound sleep.  Life in those wrestlers for it had sunk low; better die than hang on to a mere tether of living.  Yet the better instinct asserted itself.  And the second half of the expedition, far in the rear, cried for relief.  On, on!

Sir George staggered across the miles until, in the goodness of fortune, he met natives who gave him food and water.  He crawled into Perth, black with the sun, bones from want; he was not recognised by friends.  A Malay, daft but harmless, led a vagrant life at Perth, getting bit and sup from the open tables of the colonists.  The good wife of the outermost settlement, where Sir George Grey knocked, seeking refreshment, took him for ‘Magic.’

‘When I spoke to her in English,’ he said, ’she looked so surprised that I feared she might run away, leaving me without the food and drink I needed.  However, she merely exclaimed, “Well if you’re not ‘Magic,’ who are you?” Being told, and in time convinced, she brewed Sir George the most delicious cup of tea he ever drank.  Soon, relief to the expedition was scurrying across the plains.

At the start of the journey Sir George had his sextant, but, having to walk hungry and thirsty, he needed to walk light.  Therefore he hid the sextant in a tree, where many a year later it was found, a rustic relic, by some settlers.  Death raced him so hard that he eased the burden of keeping in front of it by tearing the boards from his New Testament.  To the Word itself he clung impregnably.

The perils of Sir George Grey, as an Australian explorer, match some of those experienced by Captain Sturt.  That brought up the name of the latter, and Sir George passed the eulogy:  ’Australia owes to Sturt a greater debt, perhaps, than to any other of her explorers.  His discoveries, apart from their own stir and colour; were of the first importance in the successful settlement of the country.  I knew him well; a man who would do anything for anybody, and never think of his own interests.’

Admiring Sturt so heartily, Sir George, with others, had urged that the honour of a title should be conferred upon him.  He died in England before actually receiving it, ‘Whereupon,’ said Sir George, ’I next suggested that his widow should have the rank which otherwise would have been hers, and from that, I judge, sprang the very proper rule now obtaining in such a case.’

VII PLANTING THE BRITON

‘I always got what I wanted in life,’ Sir George Grey made arch comment on himself, ‘and many things, also, that I did not want.’

His appointment as Governor of South Australia, with the steps leading up to it, he could group under the first head.  His explorations had shown that no great river, no second Murray, drained the North-West area of Australia.  This was information for geographers, and he had more, since, to quote his own words, ’We learned as much about the region, in a general way, as was necessary.’  Next, he acted for a while as Government Resident at King George’s Sound, and he investigated the country thereabout.