Imagine, if you can, how terribly tantalizing was this news, and how hard it must have seemed to these heroic men, after having suffered so much, braved so many dangers, and tasted the first sweets of success, to die of starvation just at the time when they had hoped relief would be at hand--to be so nearly saved, and to miss the certainty of rescue by only a few hours! Eagerly they searched in every direction for some trace of their comrades, and called loudly their names, but the echo of their own voices was the only answer. As a last effort for relief, they attempted to reach Mount Despair, a cattle station one hundred and fifty leagues away, but they finally gave up in complete discouragement, when one more day's march might have brought them to the summit and saved their lives.
For several weeks these brave fellows fought off their terrible fate, sometimes hoping, oftener despairing, and at last, one after another, they lay down far apart in the dreary solitude of the wilderness, to die of starvation.
All this and more was learned by Captain Howitt, who commanded an expedition of search sent out from Melbourne, some nine months after the departure of Burke and his company, not a word of news having been received concerning them, and many fears being felt for the safety of the little band. On Howitt's arrival at Cooper's Creek he, too, found the word "dig," where the four despairing men had seen it; and beneath the tree was buried, not only the paper left by Brahe, but Burke's journal, giving the details of the journey to the coast, discoveries made, and the terrible last scenes.
At every step of Burke's pathway new objects of interest had elicited his surprise and admiration. Not only were there fertile plains and beautiful, flower-dotted prairies, but lagoons of salt water, hills of red sand, and vast mounds that seemed to tell of a time when the region was thickly populated, though now it was all but untrod by man. A range of lofty mountains, discovered by Burke in the north, he called the Standish Mountains, and a lovely valley outspread at their foot he named the Land of Promise.
But alas! Great portions of Burke's journey had to be made through rugged and barren regions, destitute of water, and with nothing that could serve as food for man or beast. Driven to extremities by hunger, the pioneers devoured the venomous reptiles they killed, and on one occasion Burke came near dying from the poison of a snake he had eaten. All their horses were killed for food, and all their camels but two. Perhaps these also went at a later day, for toward the last the records in the journal became short, and were written at long intervals.