It is with regret I have had to record the existence of such large areas of desert land encountered in my travels in Australia.  The emigrant, however, need have no fear on that account.  The scenes of his avocations will be far removed from them.  They are no more a check to emigration now than fifty years ago.  As a final remark, I may say my former companion in the field, Mr. W.H.  Tietkens, has just returned from a fresh exploration of the country in the vicinity of Lake Amadeus, and the report of his travels should be looked forward to with pleasure by all who take any interest in our Colonial dependencies.

If my narrative has no other recommendation, it may at least serve to while away a vacant hour, and remind my readers of something better, they have read before.  It was not for what I had written, that I hoped to reap the good opinion of the world, but for what I have done, and that I have recorded.  Any one who is sufficiently interested to read these pages, may well understand the trials and dangers that have beset my path.  The number of miles of previously unknown country that I have explored reaches to the sum of many thousands.  The time I expended was five of the best years of my life.  As a recognition of my labours, I have received the Patron’s Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London; and the late King Victor Emanuel sent me a decoration and diploma of Knighthood, of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

To a man accustomed to camels for exploration, the beautiful horse sinks into the insignificance of a pigmy when compared to his majestic rival, the mighty ship of the desert, and assuredly had it not been for these creatures and their marvellous powers, I never could have performed the three last journeys which complete my public explorations in Australia.

I have called my book The Romance of Exploration; the romance is in the chivalry of the achievement of difficult and dangerous, if not almost impossible, tasks.  Should I again be called on to enter the Field of Discovery, although to scenes remote from my former Australian sphere, I should not be the explorer I have represented myself in these pages, if, even remembering the perils of my former adventures, I should shrink from facing new.  An explorer is an explorer from love, and it is nature, not art, that makes him so.

The history of Australian exploration, though not yet quite complete, is now so far advanced towards its end, that only minor details now are wanting, to fill the volume up; and though I shall not attempt to rank myself amongst the first or greatest, yet I think I have reason to call myself, the last of the Australian explorers.

As a last remark, I may say the following lines may convey some of my real feelings towards:—­

    Australia.

    What though no hist’ries old,
    Rest o’er that land of gold;
    And though no bard has told
    Tales, of her clime: