In addition to the streams which thus increase the waters of the Murray throughout its sinuous course, it enumerates among its tributaries many rivers which, from their length, if not from the varied country they traverse, cannot but be deemed interesting, if not important. Such are the Lodden, Campaspe, Goulburn, Mitta-Mitta, Ovens, and others, including the Lindesay, first noticed by Captain Sturt, and which, passing through much auriferous country, severally and conjointly water about two-thirds of the province of Victoria, or a superficial extent of more than 50,000 square miles.
Independent, moreover, of these minor affluents which swell the drainage amount of the river Murray—a basin stretching from near the 25th to the 36th parallel of latitude, and from the 139th to beyond the 152nd degree of east longitude, an estimated extent of 540,600 square miles,[3] or nearly seven times the superficial extent of Great Britain—there exists in close connection with the main stream a network of rivers which may perhaps have been destined to fulfil those purposes which the vagaries of Nature have transferred to the parent river. These are denominated the Edward, Logan, Wakool, and Neimur Rivers; which, having a more direct course than the Murray itself, would, but for their unfortunate termination, after some hundred miles in a shallow creek, at no very distant period, have proved themselves of inestimable value to the internal prosperity of the adjacent provinces. As it is, nothing but a superabundant population will probably succeed in turning these streams to a useful or, at least, a navigable end.
The Murray, thus combining within its basin nearly the entire drainage of the province of Victoria, with a large portion of that of New South Wales, and much of the eastern part of South Australia, appears to have been unknown to British Colonists before 1830, when Captain Charles Sturt, of the 39th Regiment—one of the most ardent and intrepid explorers the world has ever seen—whilst tracing the source, or rather course, of the Murrumbidgee, by order of the Sydney Government, came upon this noble river; to which, in honour of the then Colonial Secretary, the distinguished Sir George Murray, he gave its present name. His party, on this occasion, consisted, himself included, of no more than eight individuals, a portion of whom were convict prisoners, the main body of the expedition having been left (January 7th) in depôt at the Murrumbidgee, with instructions to repair, after a few days’ delay, to the Goulburn Plains, from whence a communication might be maintained with Sydney. Captain Sturt’s means of transport were comprised in a whale boat and small skiff, built in seven days on the Murrumbidgee, and with these means and a stock of provisions barely sufficient, it afterwards appeared, for subsistence, this determined man did not hesitate to follow the course of the Murray to its mouth; this, after many obstacles, in the Murrumbidgee, from the “snags” or sunken logs with which it was encumbered, and, at that season, it appears from the rapidity of the current, and in the main river (which averaged 200 yards in breadth) from the unequivocally hostile demeanour of the numerous tribes of natives encountered on its banks, he reached in thirty-two days, from the depôt. Thence, after traversing the broad but shallow lake in which the Murray terminates before reaching the sea, finding it useless to attempt to force a passage in his frail boat through the dangerous navigation of the sea mouth, or hopeless of any advantage to his party, even were it effected, he took the decided, though perhaps inevitable, course of retracing his steps up the stream and thus returning to the depôt of his party; who, he conceived, would then be in search of him. With an aching heart, but a firm will, as Captain Sturt himself relates, was this resolution carried into effect, and after thirty-nine days from the sea, on the very day his stock of flour had failed him, and when his party were all but incapable of further exertion, he fell in with his people, who had been summoned to his aid by two of the heroic crew who had shared his dangers and privations; and whom, as a last resource, he had dispatched to seek the depôt.