dry upon the sands, and remained in this frightful condition for eight days before the returning waters drifted them off. But the Hero was a staunch craft—an iron blockade-runner, built at Glasgow during our late war. She was of twelve hundred tons burden, manned by forty-two men, and had already weathered storms and dangers enough to earn a right to the name she bore. Right nobly she fulfilled her dangerous mission, threading her way with difficulty among whole fields of coral, that sometimes almost enclosed her low hull as between two walls; again seeming upon the very verge of the breakers or ready to be engulfed in their whirling eddies, but emerging at last into the open channel, a monument of the skill and watchfulness of her officers. Many of these for days together never left the deck, and the lead was cast three or four times an hour during the whole passage of these dangerous seas. Such is the history of navigation in coral seas, but if full of danger, they are equally replete with picturesque beauty. In the coral isle, with its blue lagoon, its circling reef and smiling vegetation, there is a wondrous fascination; while in the long reefs, with the ocean driving furiously upon them, only to be driven pitilessly back, all wreathed in white foam and diamond spray, there is enough of the sublime to transfix the most careless observer. The barrier reef that skirts the north-east coast of the Australian continent is the grandest coral formation in the world, stretching for a distance of a thousand miles, with a varying breadth of from two hundred yards to a mile. The maximum distance from the shore is seventy miles, but it rarely exceeds twenty-five or thirty. Between this and the mainland lies a sheltered channel, safe, for the most part, when reached; but there are few open passages from the ocean, and the shoals of imperfectly-formed coral that lie concealed just below the surface render the most watchful care necessary to a safe passage. The fires of the cannibals, visible on every peak all along the coast, shed their ruddy light over the blue waters, illumining here and there some lofty crest, and adding a weird beauty to the enchanting scene.

"America has no monuments," say our Transatlantic cousins, "because it is but two hundred years old." Well, Australia, with little more than three-quarters of a hundred, has already its monument—a beautiful bronze monument erected to the memory of the explorers Burke and Wills on a lofty pedestal of elegant workmanship, and occupying a commanding eminence in the city of Melbourne. The figures, two in number, are of more than life size, one rising above the other—the chief, with noble form and dignified air, fraternally supporting his younger confrere. The pedestal shows three bas-reliefs of exquisite design—one the return to Cooper's Creek,

where the torn garments and emaciated limbs tell with sad emphasis the woeful tale of hardship and toil through which the heroic explorers had been passing; another exhibiting the subsequent death of Burke;

and the third the finding of the remains.

Burke and Wills, to whom belongs the honor of being the first explorers that crossed the entire continent of Australia, extending their researches from the Australian to the Pacific Ocean, set out on the 20th of August, 1860, with a party of fifteen hardy pioneers upon their perilous mission. Burke was in the prime of life, a man of iron frame, dauntless courage and an enthusiasm that knew neither difficulty nor danger. Wills, who belonged to a family that had already given one of its members to Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, to find a martyr's grave among the eternal icebergs of the north, was somewhat younger, and perhaps less enthusiastic, but was endowed with a rare discretion and far-seeing sagacity that peculiarly fitted him to be the friend and counselor of the enthusiastic Burke in such an undertaking. All Melbourne was in excitement: the government gave fifty thousand dollars, various individuals ten thousand, to aid the enterprise; and every heart was aglow with aspirations for their success as the little band of heroes waved their adieus and turned their faces outward to seek paths hitherto untrodden by the white man's foot. Besides horses, twenty-seven camels had been imported from India for the express use of the explorers and for the transportation of tents, baggage, equipments, and fifteen months' supply of provisions, with vessels for carrying such supplies of water as the character of the country over which they were passing should require them to take with them. Their plan of march divided itself into three stages, of which Cooper's Creek was the middle one, and about the centre of the Australian continent. At first their progress was slow, encumbered as they were by excess of baggage and equipments: then discontents arose in the little band, and Burke, too ardent and impulsive for a leader, was first grieved, and then angered, at what he deemed a want of spirit among some of his men. On the 19th of October, at Menindie, he left a portion of the troop under the command of Lieutenant Wright, with orders after a short rest to rejoin him at Cooper's Creek. It was the end of January before Wright set out for the point indicated. Meanwhile, as month followed month, bringing to Melbourne no news of Burke's party, the worst fears were awakened concerning its fate, and an expedition was fitted out to search for the lost heroes. To young Howitt was given the command, and it was his fortune to unveil the sad mystery that had enveloped their fate. On the 29th of June, 1861, crossing the river Loddon, Howitt encountered a portion of Burke's company under the lead of Brahe, the fourth lieutenant. Four of his men had died of scurvy, and the rest of his little band seemed utterly dispirited. Howitt learned that in two months Burke had crossed the entire route, sometimes desert, sometimes prairie, between Menindie and Cooper's Creek, and had reached the borders of the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the extreme north of the continent; also, that he was there in January, enduring the fiercest heat of summer, and men and beasts alike languishing for water, and nearly out of provisions. It was all in vain that he deplored the tardiness of Wright, and hoped, as he neared Cooper's Creek, for the coming of those who alone had the means of life for his little squad of famished men. Equally in vain that Wills with three camels reconnoitred the ground for scores of miles, hoping to find water. Not an oasis, not a rivulet, was to be found, and without a single drop of water to quench their parched lips they set out on another long and dreary march. Desiring to secure the utmost speed, Burke had left Brahe on the 16th of December with the sick and most of his provisions at Cooper's Creek, to remain three months at least, and longer if they were able, while