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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katie Labor and I'm Sarah Doubt and we've gotten

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Speaker 1: a lot of requests for some Australian history, specifically the

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Speaker 1: Burke and Wills Expedition. I got emails from Seawan in

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Speaker 1: Liverpool and also Matt in Western Australia. And that might

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Speaker 1: make a little more sense to you when you hear

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Speaker 1: this quote from a writer named Sarah Murgatroyd who wrote

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Speaker 1: a book called The Dig Tree about the expedition, and

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Speaker 1: she said, the history of Australian exploration is littered with

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Speaker 1: the corpses of men who underestimated the power, the size

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Speaker 1: and the unpredictability of the outback. And the Victorian Exploring Expedition,

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Speaker 1: which was the original name of the expedition, aimed across

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Speaker 1: Australia from south to north and back again, so no

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Speaker 1: one really knew what was in the interior of the

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Speaker 1: Australian continent. In the early eighteen hundreds of people even

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Speaker 1: thought that there might be an inland sea. They had

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Speaker 1: explored the coastline, but they just didn't know what was

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Speaker 1: in the middle two thirds of the continent was unexplored,

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Speaker 1: and the big question everybody was asking was what was

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Speaker 1: in the ghastly blank? So the Victorian Exploring expedition left

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Speaker 1: too much fanfare and cheering crowds. But only one man

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Speaker 1: made the trip and survived, and he wasn't Burke or Wills.

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Speaker 1: So with that note of doom struck, let us continue.

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Speaker 1: So exploring the ghastly Blank seems like reason enough to

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Speaker 1: go into the outback, but the Royal Society of Victoria

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Speaker 1: had a few other good reasons for doing so, like

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Speaker 1: discovering new grazing land, maybe finding more gold, and some

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Speaker 1: minerals controlling a telegraph line that would link Australia to Asia,

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Speaker 1: finding Ludwig Leichhard and a different explorer who completely disappeared

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight. And they also had the unstated

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Speaker 1: goal of being John mcdouell's stewart of South Australia who

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Speaker 1: was trying to do the same thing. The expedition was

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Speaker 1: going to be big and it was going to cost

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Speaker 1: a lot of money, so it took a while to

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Speaker 1: raise the money necessary to launch it, and some of

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Speaker 1: the funds came from private sources, as well as government sources,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of a lot of the reason why

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Speaker 1: it was so expensive is because they planned on importing

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Speaker 1: twenty four camels to make the trip with, because camels

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Speaker 1: go in the out back and I'm not sure. So

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Speaker 1: from the very beginning of this expedition, retrospectively, you can

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Speaker 1: see it's off to an odd start. Even in the

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Speaker 1: planning stages, we're spending massive amounts of money for things

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Speaker 1: like camels. We don't even know how camels will fare

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Speaker 1: in the outback because they've only really been there in exhibitions.

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Speaker 1: So why are we fixated on this idea? I can't

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Speaker 1: tell you. Yeah, it just lines up with the idea

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Speaker 1: of what an explorer ought to be. Reminded us both

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Speaker 1: kind of a lawrence of Arabia. And you're launching this

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Speaker 1: mission that seems like it's got everything covered and every

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Speaker 1: thing is how it ought to be. But really they

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Speaker 1: just don't know what they're getting into at all, and

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Speaker 1: they're horribly unprepared. But at the time, of course, no

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Speaker 1: one knows this, and they're all just very excited about

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Speaker 1: the whole thing. So on August eighteen sixty the expedition

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Speaker 1: left from Melbourne fifteen thousand people showed up to watch

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Speaker 1: them go, and almost immediately things go awry. A camel

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Speaker 1: breaks loose and a wagon breaks literally almost as they start,

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Speaker 1: and then two more breakdown within the next couple of miles.

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Speaker 1: So inauspicious beginnings, let's say so. In charge of the

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Speaker 1: party is Robert O'Hara Burke, who's a thirty three year

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Speaker 1: old Irish ex police officer and he has no surveying,

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Speaker 1: exploring or navigation experience. He's been voted to lead the

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Speaker 1: expedition because of political infighting among the society. He's the

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Speaker 1: acceptable candidate to everyone. George Landells is his second in command,

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Speaker 1: and he's the guy who brings all the camels from Karach,

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Speaker 1: So there you go. William John Wills is a five

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Speaker 1: year old English surveyor and he's third in command. Their

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Speaker 1: nineteen people all together starting out, and the Victorians have

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Speaker 1: twenty tons of stuff, which is a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: for such a long journey over uncharted terrain, and some

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Speaker 1: of it just looks very strange when you're looking through

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Speaker 1: the list. Some makes sense. They've got a thousand pounds

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Speaker 1: of meat biscuits, a thousand pounds of oatmeal for the

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Speaker 1: camels eighteen thousand pounds of of hay. But they've also

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Speaker 1: got listed sixty gallons of rum for the camels and

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Speaker 1: forty pounds of pepper also for the camels, And supposedly

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Speaker 1: they thought the rum would keep the camels from getting

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Speaker 1: scurvy and the pepper would help wake them up if

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Speaker 1: they got tired. This, of course, is based on absolutely

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Speaker 1: no science whatsoever, but you know, it goes, just goes

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Speaker 1: along with that whole bumbling expedition thing. Oh yeah, and

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Speaker 1: on the on a side note about scurvy, they actually

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Speaker 1: get rid of all their lime juice pretty early on

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Speaker 1: when things are going bad, something that would be excellent

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Speaker 1: at preventing scurvy. So the camels are protected from scurvy

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Speaker 1: with pretend remedies, while actual remedies for the human beings

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Speaker 1: are left behind. So we have typical just this gross

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Speaker 1: ignorance compounded by mismanagement, right, And they find out as

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Speaker 1: they're going along there are other things they didn't know,

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Speaker 1: like it's not easy for camels to walk in mud,

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Speaker 1: and then conversely, it's not easy for wagons and horses

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Speaker 1: to make it through sand and scrub, so they start shedding.

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Speaker 1: Things like the lime, juice and sugar and other things

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Speaker 1: they actually need because they are going so incredibly slowly,

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Speaker 1: and Burke is being very fickle. He's hiring people and

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Speaker 1: firing them, and he especially doesn't like the two German

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Speaker 1: scientists who are on the trip and tells them that

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Speaker 1: they need to put down their instruments in their notebooks

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Speaker 1: and stop doing their experiments and become camel hands because

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Speaker 1: they really need help raining in these rather out of

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Speaker 1: control camels, and Burke is difficult to deal with and

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Speaker 1: his second in command and one of the scientists quickly resign,

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Speaker 1: which Sarah said she also would have done had she

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Speaker 1: been on the second I would have been somebody out

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Speaker 1: who was even before Minindi. But there's a guy who

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Speaker 1: offers to take their stuff up the Darling for a fee.

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Speaker 1: So think about that. They could be carrying all this

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Speaker 1: tons of stuff up the river and instead just making

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Speaker 1: it across basically on foot with some camels and some horses.

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Speaker 1: But because this guy had opposed Burke leading expedition in

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Speaker 1: the first place, Burke won't do it. Is that contentious election.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, we're not going to swallow our pride. Instead,

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Speaker 1: we're just going to keep hiring expensive wagons and carrying

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Speaker 1: this stuff over this ridiculous terrain for months and months,

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Speaker 1: and it's taking way too long. And Burke is even

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Speaker 1: getting frightened at this point that Stewart will beat him

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Speaker 1: to the north, at which point this is a useless expedition.

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Speaker 1: So he splits his party at Minindi, which is basically

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Speaker 1: the edge of civilization. That's where I'd cut out. There's

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Speaker 1: God at this point, and this is against his orders.

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Speaker 1: He was supposed to take the entire party up with him,

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Speaker 1: at least to Cooper's Creek, but he heads north with

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Speaker 1: the fittest men and for their guy, they have a

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Speaker 1: local guy named William Wright. And when they reached tour

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Speaker 1: a watt of swamp, Berkson's right back to Minindy, and

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Speaker 1: Wright's mission is to go back there and then come

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Speaker 1: back and meet him at Cooper's Creek with the rest

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Speaker 1: of the men and the supplies. So everyone's going to

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Speaker 1: be united at the end at Cooper's Creek, or so

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Speaker 1: Burke hopes. So meanwhile Burke is pressing on towards Cooper's

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Speaker 1: Creek from the swamp, and he gets tired of waiting

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Speaker 1: for right and you know. He waits there, and waits there,

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Speaker 1: and waits there for right to catch up with the

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Speaker 1: rest of the men and some of the supplies, and

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Speaker 1: finally decides that he's going to go break his party

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Speaker 1: yet again and take a smaller group um composed of himself, Wills,

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Speaker 1: John King, and Charles Gray, and they put William bray

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Speaker 1: He in charge of the group they're leaving behind at

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Speaker 1: Cooper's Creek and tell them to wait for them for

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Speaker 1: three months for their return. So burks group after two

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Speaker 1: months hits the Mangrove Swamps near the Gulf of Carpentaria

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Speaker 1: in February eleventh, eighteen sixty one, which makes them the

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Speaker 1: first white men to cross the continent. But it must

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Speaker 1: have been disappointing not even being able to get to

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Speaker 1: the gulf. The Mangrove Swamps were too hard to get to,

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Speaker 1: so they didn't even get you know, that view of

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Speaker 1: the sea, and thinking, oh, we've made it all across,

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Speaker 1: and there are other things that aren't going well, like

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Speaker 1: they've used two thirds of their rations and the wet

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Speaker 1: season is upon them, which means flooding and mosquitoes despite

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Speaker 1: not quite reaching the water, though it counts it's good enough.

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Speaker 1: They've met their goal, and they begin their trip back south.

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Speaker 1: They're met with rain, rain, and more rain, and it's

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Speaker 1: turning the ground into a giant bog. It's the summer,

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Speaker 1: so it is incredibly hot, and as we mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: their supplies are running low, and they start trying to

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Speaker 1: eat off the and in watching the Aborigines. So they

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Speaker 1: eat muscles, which doesn't sound bad, but they also kill

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Speaker 1: an eight foot long snake and eat that, which doesn't

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Speaker 1: sit well with them. Burke gets dysentery and uh moving

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Speaker 1: on to more domestic fair, probably deciding the snake doesn't

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Speaker 1: make for a very good dinner. They kill and eat

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Speaker 1: some of their camels and a horse, and their stuff

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Speaker 1: is too heavy, so they bury their equipment in instruments.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why they thought they would be coming

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Speaker 1: back to this spot eventually, but who knows. It seemed

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Speaker 1: like the thing to do on this trip back. Wills

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Speaker 1: catches Gray stealing flour from the rations, which of course

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Speaker 1: isn't something they can spare. Gray says that he's sick

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Speaker 1: and he's weak, but Burke thinks he's just shamming and

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Speaker 1: beats him. And there's some historical debate over what kind

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Speaker 1: of a beating this was, if it was just say,

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Speaker 1: a smack, or if it was something more serious. But

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Speaker 1: it appeared that Gray wasn't chamming about feeling weak, because

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Speaker 1: he dies within a few days and the other men

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Speaker 1: aren't feeling so great either. Yeah, they finally make it

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Speaker 1: to Cooper's Creek, though in April sixty one. This is

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Speaker 1: just Burke, Wills, and King at this point, and the

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Speaker 1: base party is not there. They'd waited for the three

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Speaker 1: months that Burke asked them to. They even waited longer

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Speaker 1: than that, nearly five months, and they had just left

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Speaker 1: that morning, which is so sad and frustrating even even

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Speaker 1: all this time after. But they've left supplies and they've

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Speaker 1: buried them, and they've noted them with blazes. So there's

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Speaker 1: a little help on the way, it seems, and Burke

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Speaker 1: knows that they're close, but the men are simply too

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Speaker 1: weak to try to follow the party that night. So

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Speaker 1: in the meantime, let's go back to our group at

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Speaker 1: Cooper's Creek. So things haven't been that great for the

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Speaker 1: guys who have been left behind at Cooper's Creek. The

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Speaker 1: Aborigines have been stealing some of their supplies. The who

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Speaker 1: were supposed to come up from Menindi with Right the

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Speaker 1: backup supplies never showed up, and the manner sick. One

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Speaker 1: has scurvy and a leg injury to or diseased, and

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Speaker 1: they've given up on Burke. You know, they must just

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Speaker 1: think at this point that the party of fours out

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Speaker 1: out there somewhere dead. Maybe they made it, maybe they didn't,

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Speaker 1: but they're not coming back to Cooper's Creek. So they

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Speaker 1: decide to leave in April. But on their trip out

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Speaker 1: they come across tracks from Right and the people coming

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Speaker 1: up from Nindi bringing them supplies. And Wright had had

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Speaker 1: his own difficulties. He'd run out of money, their meat

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Speaker 1: had gone rancid, their water poles had dried up. He

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Speaker 1: didn't have a surveyor, so he was just following Burke's,

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Speaker 1: you know, three month old tracks. Yeah. They're also attacked

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Speaker 1: all the time by rats, which long haired rats to

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Speaker 1: which makes it so much worse for some reason. And

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Speaker 1: they're bothered by the Aborigines. And you can get a

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Speaker 1: sense of what state they were in when they're making

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Speaker 1: this track by their camp names Desolation Point, mud Plane,

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Speaker 1: rat Point, so it's hot, they don't have good food,

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Speaker 1: they don't have good water. Three of the men died,

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Speaker 1: including Dr Ludwig Becker, and they're not doing well. But

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Speaker 1: Right and Bray, despite being plagued by problems, have now

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Speaker 1: met up. So we've got our two left behind parties

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Speaker 1: who have now become one group or MENINDI guys and

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Speaker 1: are Cooper's right. And they go back to the dig Tree,

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Speaker 1: which was that base camp on Cooper's Creek on May eighth,

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Speaker 1: but they don't see any signs of Burke. He hasn't

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Speaker 1: changed the blaze or left them a note or anything,

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Speaker 1: so they assume that no one's been there and they

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Speaker 1: leave again, and on the way another man dies, So

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Speaker 1: back to Burke, they decided not to follow a Bragy. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they're going to head towards Mount Hopeless, which sounds like

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Speaker 1: a terrible idea. It doesn't sound good at all. It is. However,

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Speaker 1: a police outpost and and explore A c Gregory had

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Speaker 1: made the trip just a few years before and said

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Speaker 1: it only took them about a week, so maybe it's

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Speaker 1: not such a bad idea after all. But unfortunately, our

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Speaker 1: party of three has a hard time navigating and can't

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Speaker 1: seem to find mount Hopeless, and while they're along the creek,

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Speaker 1: their two remaining camels die, so they eat the meat,

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Speaker 1: but now they have no way to carry water, and

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Speaker 1: they're in a place where they don't know where there's

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Speaker 1: any more water to be found anyways, so they're stuck

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Speaker 1: here on Cooper's Creek. They do get some food from

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Speaker 1: the Aborigines fish and nardiu cakes. And Nardiu cakes are

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Speaker 1: made from the nardou plant, which is kind of like

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Speaker 1: a four leaf clover, and it's actually made from the

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Speaker 1: spores which are ground and cooked, which is an important note,

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Speaker 1: and then made into a cake. Eventually, the men get

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Speaker 1: their own nardou seeds and they figure, well, we know

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Speaker 1: how to mcnardo cakes, and they just grind it up

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Speaker 1: and and fashion it into raw cakes, which is a problem.

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Speaker 1: This will be important later, but in the meantime, it's

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Speaker 1: getting cold there in rags. Will's at some point goes

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Speaker 1: back to the dig Tree to leave his journals and

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Speaker 1: a note. He's still writing letters at this point to

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Speaker 1: his people back home and time to be sad Rahe

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Speaker 1: and Wright had of course been back to the dig Tree,

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Speaker 1: but since they haven't seen any signs of the men.

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Speaker 1: They didn't leave any signs either, so Will goes back

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Speaker 1: and he doesn't know anyone's ever been so the lesson

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Speaker 1: of the stories always leave a note for you arrested

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Speaker 1: development fans. So, speaking of blazes, we have one too many.

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Speaker 1: At camp, Burke accidentally sets fire to all of their stuff. Seriously,

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Speaker 1: does this trip get any word it does? It does?

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Speaker 1: Apparently does. The men are getting weaker and weaker. They're

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Speaker 1: living exclusively off nardo, but it just seems to make

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Speaker 1: them feel worse. They're emaciated, they have very low pulses.

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Speaker 1: So Burke and King decide to go off and try

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Speaker 1: to find some aborigines for help, leaving Wills behind. But

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Speaker 1: Burke two weekends on this trip and can't go any further,

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Speaker 1: and he and King sit down, eat more nardo, shoot

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Speaker 1: and eat a crow, and by the next morning Burke

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Speaker 1: can't even get up, and he asked King to leave

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Speaker 1: his pistol in his hand and not bother burying him,

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Speaker 1: I guess, hoping to conserve King's own energy. King goes

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Speaker 1: back to find Wills, but Wills is dead. He'd written

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Speaker 1: a letter to his father that ended I think to

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Speaker 1: live about four or five days, spirits are excellent, which

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Speaker 1: just broke Sarah's and my heart. Um the Aborigines had

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Speaker 1: taken some of his clothes from his dead body, and

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Speaker 1: they'd covered him with some bows. So King Barry's wills

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Speaker 1: and then he goes looking for the Rwanda people who

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Speaker 1: had helped them before he realized is getting Aboriginal help

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Speaker 1: is his only option. But back home, several relief parties

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Speaker 1: have been put together and sent to different parts of Australia.

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Speaker 1: Because by this time they should have been back, they

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Speaker 1: should have heard something from them. And on September eight

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Speaker 1: sixty one, a surveyor and one party at Cooper's Creek

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Speaker 1: sees Aborigines yelling and waving and making signs at him.

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Speaker 1: So he goes to them and sees a figure in rags,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote, before I could pull up, I passed it.

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Speaker 1: And as I passed it tottered, threw up its hands

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Speaker 1: in an attitude of prayer, and fell on the sand.

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Speaker 1: When I turned back, the figure had partly risen, hastily dismounting.

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Speaker 1: I was soon beside it, excitedly asking who in the

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Speaker 1: name of wonder are you guess who it was? It was?

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Speaker 1: King he survived thanks to the Yonder Wanda who had

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Speaker 1: taken care of him. He had managed to find them

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Speaker 1: and they kept him alive. Um, and so now the

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Speaker 1: party united. They go to a cover the bodies of

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Speaker 1: Wills and Burke, and they find Wills. Most of his

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Speaker 1: skull is missing, but he's buried in a Bible versus read.

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Speaker 1: Burke has missing hands and feet, which is but his

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Speaker 1: gun is still there, which was in their hand. Um,

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Speaker 1: he's buried in a union jack and people are obsessed

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Speaker 1: with this story. John King is so harassed by women

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Speaker 1: on his way back to Melbourne that they actually have

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Speaker 1: to lock him in his bedroom. It becomes a sensational story.

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Speaker 1: The more the details leaked to the media and then

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Speaker 1: filter out to the press, the more interested people get.

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Speaker 1: The bodies of Burke and Wills actually insisted on bringing

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Speaker 1: back to Melbourne for a state funeral. Statues of them

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Speaker 1: were built and they were heroes. A hundred thousand people

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Speaker 1: came to see the remains at the Royal Society headquarters.

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Speaker 1: And you know, if you were just important enough, they

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Speaker 1: might let you even touch the bones. And it's interesting

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Speaker 1: that the perspective at that time was that these men

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Speaker 1: were heroes, and it was a story of daring, but

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Speaker 1: it changed over time and it became more what it

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Speaker 1: really was, which was just a disastrous trip and um

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Speaker 1: Burke and the and the rest of the party just

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Speaker 1: didn't understand the outback or the Aborigines or how to

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Speaker 1: survive their right. The blame game has never quite ended

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Speaker 1: with that. Some people blame Burke because of his arrogance

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Speaker 1: and just complete lack of knowledge about anything he was doing.

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Speaker 1: The Royal Commission blamed people like Right, who they said

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Speaker 1: was just sitting around with his feet up, not doing anything,

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Speaker 1: and why did it take him so long to leave

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Speaker 1: Menindi Right and the writer we'd mentioned earlier, Sarah Murgatroyd,

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Speaker 1: says we should actually blame the Royal Society, who had

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Speaker 1: an evil sort of plot to take over a large

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Speaker 1: piece of what is now Queensland. But we have a

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Speaker 1: little mystery tied up in this story, and that is

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Speaker 1: how did they die? And people thought for a long

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Speaker 1: time that it was starvation and exhaustion, but it seems

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Speaker 1: that it was actually berry berry or the lack of

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Speaker 1: vitamin B. And the main culprit here be that Nardo

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Speaker 1: that we kept mentioning that looks, you know, like a

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Speaker 1: four leaf clover. It looks so sweet, but it's full

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Speaker 1: of viaminase, which breaks down vitamin B in your body.

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Speaker 1: It's a toxin, and when you cook it it gets

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Speaker 1: rid of the toxins aborigines, But if you eat it raw,

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Speaker 1: like Burke and Wills decided they were so much smarter

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Speaker 1: than the aborigines, the toxin is still there and it

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Speaker 1: robs your body of that desperately needed viamine. The flower

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Speaker 1: that Gray stole actually has lots of vitamin BE in it,

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Speaker 1: so perhaps his body was telling him what he needed,

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Speaker 1: and they actually may have been suffering from very very

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Speaker 1: long before they even started eating the nardo because of

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Speaker 1: those fresh water muscles which can also have the same

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Speaker 1: toxin in them. So we're left with a question with

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Speaker 1: this disastrous mission, did anything good come out of it?

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Speaker 1: And a little bit did? The German scientists Ludwig Becker

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Speaker 1: and Herman Beckler actually did some pretty awesome research on

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Speaker 1: the trip, even though Burke wouldn't let them do much

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Speaker 1: and would rather them work with camel hands. Um Back

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Speaker 1: gathered hundreds of specimens of plants and birds, and Becker

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Speaker 1: made lots of drawings and paintings. Even when he was dying,

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Speaker 1: he drew the long haired rat that was eating his feet.

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Speaker 1: I cannot get over this jail. I probably never will.

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Speaker 1: Too horrible, but the relief parties that were sent out

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Speaker 1: actually explored a lot of new area in Australia, much

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Speaker 1: more than the actual expedition, and because of what they learned,

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Speaker 1: it opened up huge pieces of land for grazing, and

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Speaker 1: they also brought back a lot of aboriginal stuff. This

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Speaker 1: kind of reminded me of the podcast we did on

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Speaker 1: Frank Cranklin in the Northwest Passage Trip, because you have

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Speaker 1: the first rounds of explorers being lost, and then it's

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Speaker 1: the follow up guys, the search parties, who actually end

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Speaker 1: up charting a lot of territory and learning a lot.

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Speaker 1: And it's funny because if Burke and Wills had survived,

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Speaker 1: they probably would have gotten some of the blame for

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Speaker 1: things going horribly wrong, but since they died, they got

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Speaker 1: that romanticized sort of gloss and became these legendary figures

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Speaker 1: that people are just fascinated with. At a November two

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Speaker 1: thousand five auction, Burke's leather water bottle went for two

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty six thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars

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Speaker 1: for a water bottle. That's completely insane. Yeah, they were

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Speaker 1: immortalized by this failed mission. And before we sign off,

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Speaker 1: we have one more little mystery for you. During one

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Speaker 1: of the relief party excursions, a guy named John McKinley

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Speaker 1: found a white man's grave at a place called Lake Massacre.

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Speaker 1: He thought it was gray, but it wasn't, and no

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Speaker 1: one to this day knows whose body it is or

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Speaker 1: where grays is varied. But that, you know, brings us

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Speaker 1: to one of our favorite themes, which of course is

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Speaker 1: exclamation that we had to mention that one. So the

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Speaker 1: consequences of this are the opening of the outback. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about the death of a few explorers here, but

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Speaker 1: we also have to consider the untold side of which

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Speaker 1: is the story of the Aborigines. And by opening up

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Speaker 1: all this vast, unexplored area of Australia, it's the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the exploitation of the Aborigines. So if you want

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Speaker 1: to hear more about the Aborigines side of the story,

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Speaker 1: go to our homepage and search for Stolen Generation at

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Speaker 1: www dot how stuff works dot com. For more on

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00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to check out the stuff

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Speaker 1: you missed in History Class blog on the how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com home page