|
|
The publication by the Hakluyt Society of the set of original journals written by Charles Sturt during his third and last major Australian expedition in 1844-1846 makes these journals generally accessible for the first time. The journals have been transcribed from the privately owned manuscript originals, hitherto available only as black-and-white microfilm made by the Australian Joint Copying Project. They have been edited historically by Richard C. Davis, a Professor of English at Calgary University. Professor Davis has an established record of research into explorers’ accounts of the remote fringes of Britain’s colonial empire, both Canadian and Australian. His scholarly interest in the layers of narrative created by explorers writing and rewriting their experiences for various private and public reading audiences has found ample scope in Sturt’s journals. Sturt wrote them on foolscap sheets of paper folded in half and sewn together to form nine “folders”. Folders 2-9 cover the entire expedition from start to finish, while folder 1 is a later rewriting of the material in folder 2. The folders were based on rough field notes that survive only in fragments. The letters that Sturt also wrote during the expedition to his wife, his later manuscript versions of portions of the journals, and his published Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia, Performed under the Authority of Her Majesty’s Government, During the Years 1844, 5, and 6 (London: T. and W. Boone, 1849) differ in subtle but significant ways from the original journals published here. The footnotes added by Professor Davis augment the text of the journals, identifying plants and animals mentioned, making brief comparisons to Sturt’s other accounts of the expedition, etc. Given the differences among Sturt’s various accounts, any reader interested in the details of the expedition will want to read this edition of the Journals in conjunction with the other accounts. The letters that Sturt wrote to his wife have been edited by Jill Waterhouse and published as Journal of the Central Australian Expedition 1844-1845 (London: Caliban Books, 1984). The Narrative published in 1849 by Sturt and republished as no. 5 in the series Australiana Facsimile Editions (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1965) is excellent, because it includes a large-format “Map of Captn. Sturt’s route from Adelaide into the centre of Australia, constructed from his original protractions, and other official documents” produced in London by John Arrowsmith in 1849. The small modern route map in Professor Davis’s edition of the Journals is too general and lacking in detail to allow Sturt’s route to be followed closely. The small map in the Journal edited by Waterhouse has similar drawbacks, so the large Arrowsmith map is essential for the reader who wants to tie these accounts to the geographical landscape through which the expedition passed.
The most substantive addition that Professor Davis has made to this
edition of the Journals is the 63-page introductory essay. Here he
situates the Central Australia Expedition in broader historical
perspective, as well as in the context of Charles Sturt’s personal
ambitions. Charles Sturt, a captain in the British Army, had arrived in
Sydney, Australia with a contingent of the 39th Regiment in 1827. Poor but
ambitious, Sturt saw the role of explorer as a route to recognition and
advancement and eagerly volunteered. During two earlier expeditions sent
out by Governor Darling in 1828-1830, Sturt and his companions had
explored the river systems of New South Wales, opening the way for the
eventual inland expansion of colonial settlement. Suffering from blindness
brought on by the hardships of exploration, Sturt returned in 1833 to
England and recuperated, first retiring on a disability pension, but soon
thereafter exchanging the pension for a land grant in Australia and
returning there with his bride in 1834. Neither his land speculations,
first in New South Wales and from 1839 in South Australia, nor his efforts
to secure himself in a government position in South Australia proved
entirely successful. Desperate for glory and reward, Sturt wrote to the
Colonial Office in England with a grandiose plan to explore Australia from
North to South and East to West in two years. The British government and
the Royal Geographical Society instead offered to support a sensibly
scaled-down expedition from Adelaide northward into the interior. Setting
off in 1844, Sturt and his companions reached a point about 11 degrees
north of Adelaide but failed to discover the expected inland sea, the
continental divide or land suitable for agriculture. Returning in 17
months (rather than the planned 12 months), they were feted for making the
journey and for surviving despite the great hardships. For Sturt the
battle was just beginning. The Narrative of the expedition that
Sturt published in 1849 was written as part of his personal campaign,
waged with some success, to secure fame and fortune in reward for his
arduous explorations. As interpreted by Professor Davis, Sturt’s various
accounts of the Central Australia Expedition, important though they are as
an early record of the Australian interior, also reveal just as much about
the writer and his cultural biases. |
|
