Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
THE LOST EXPLORERS
"AND ALL THIS TIME THE HAPPY-GO-LUCKY SHADOW WAS
PLUGGINGALONG OVER THE THIRSTY DESERT SANDS"
THE LOST EXPLORERS
A STORY OF THE TRACKLESS DESERT
BY
ALEXANDER MACDONALD
F.R.G.S., F.R.S.G.S., F.R.C.I.
Author of
"In Search of El Dorado"
"The Trail of the Pioneer"
"Pioneering in Klondike"
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR H. BUCKLAND
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY
1907
Copyrighted in the United States, America
by Blackie & Son, Limited
DEDICATED TO
B. B.
PREFACE
In this work I have endeavoured to portray a phase of life in a far-awayland, a land concerning which we have only too little knowledge at thepresent time, though it is one of our Empire's greatest colonies. I amaware that to make a book composed largely of realhappenings—especially when one writes for the youth of the nation—is asomewhat unusual thing to do. In The Lost Explorers I have given atale of gold-digging and of exploration—a tale, for the most part, ofevents that have actually happened. My characters are all drawn—howevercrudely—from life; my descriptions are those of one who has seen andfelt in a similar environment. My boys in the story were real boys, andthey dared and suffered and accomplished together. As for Mackay, he isstill a power in the land, ready and willing always, as he said to hisyoung companions, "to shed the light of his great knowledge abroad forthe benefit of mankind in general".
The last few chapters of the book are based on an explorer's naturaldeductions. We all, who have forced a painful path over CentralAustralia's arid sands, hope—ay, believe—in the existence of awonderful region in the vague mists of the Never Never Land. Perhapsthe[Pg 6] very strenuousness of the wish brings about the belief. Who cansay? My descriptions of the strange aborigines beyond the mysticmountains are not altogether fanciful. In my own wanderings I haveencountered more than one tribe whose mental development was far inadvance of that usually credited to the untutored savage of the greatIsland Continent. What I have written, I have written faithfully, and tothe best of my ability. If The Lost Explorers gives pleasure to myreaders, I shall indeed be more than content.
ALEXANDER MACDONALD.
CONTENTS
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