Mr. Walker, despatched overland from Queensland, reached the Gulf on the 7th of December, 1861; and reported that he had, on the 24th of November, found well-defined traces of three or four camels and one horse, undoubtedly belonging to the Victorian Expedition, and making their way down the Flinders.  With his usual characteristic, he started again on the 11th of December.  Mr. Walker, with his party, consisting chiefly of natives, did good service in his progress through Queensland; for when the report reached Melbourne, through Captain Norman, that he had discovered the tracks of the camels so near the sea, it furnished satisfactory evidence of the correctness of my son’s journals, although the fatal news of his death and that of his commander had been long received.  There were not wanting ungenerous cavillers to insinuate doubts that he and Burke had been at the Gulf.  This inference they sought to establish from an expression in one of the few of Burke’s notes preserved, to this effect:  “28th March.—­At the conclusion of report, it would be well to say that we reached the sea, but we could not obtain a view of the open ocean, although we made every effort to do so.”  At the extreme point they reached, about fifteen miles down the Flinders, the tide ebbed and flowed regularly, and the water was quite salt.  The very simplicity of Mr. Burke’s remark shows that it was made by a man not given to lying or deceit.  Mr. Walker followed the return tracks for some distance, but lost them at about 20 degrees of south latitude, and then struck off direct east for the Queensland district, to inquire, and get further supplies for a new start.  At Rockhampton he received the fatal intelligence which had been sent round by sea from Melbourne; and also the news of the discovery of King by the gallant Howitt, to whom all honour is due for his labours in the cause.

But Mr. McKinlay, leader of the South Australian Expedition, of whom I have already spoken more than once, has performed the most extraordinary exploit of all, and has traversed by far the greatest quantity of new ground, but not in the direction originally intended by the government that sent him.  Failing in finding the traces of Burke and his expedition, McKinlay took more to the north and north-west between the 120 and 140 degrees of eastern longitude.  Yet from some floodings which my son, it will be remembered, pointed out in his journal as occurring from indications on trees, McKinlay changed his course to north and by east until he reached the Gulf of Carpentaria, and then to south and by east, and crossed to Queensland, returning from Rockhampton to Adelaide by water.  A glance at the map will show the courses of these respective explorers sufficiently for general purposes.  Thus Queensland, by some mysterious influences in its favour, has reaped the whole benefit of these explorations at the least apparent cost.  The land discovered by the Burke and Wills Expedition, now named Burke’s Land, has been handed over to Queensland by the Home Government, up to Cape York, on the extreme north, in Torres Straits.  This vast continent, west of 140 degrees, in which the South Australian, and West Australian governments have so much interest, is, with the exception of Stuart’s Line, quite unexplored.