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With such men at the head, and with such enthusiastic workers as it was our good pleasure to meet in all parts of the country, what may we not expect in the prosecution of this great reform ?

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BURKE AND WILLS, THE

EXPLORERS.

HERE is a class of men who are generally more deserving of our gratitude than we are apparently disposed to admit, at least in any practical way.

I mean those self-denying, adventurous men, pioneers and explorers, who, taking their lives in their hands, go forth to grapple with difficulties they know not what, that they may open the way for civilization, for settlement of uninhabited regions, for the amelioration of the condition of the savage, or to extend the field of scientific and Christian knowledge. Perhaps fully fifty per cent. or more of these courageous men pay the penalty with their lives. Who can help admiring the spirit of such men as Sir John Franklin, and Kane, and Rae, and others who have penetrated the frozen regions about and beyond the Arctic circle?

Or Speke, and Livingstone, and Stanley, who have braved difficulties quite as great under the scorching rays of the equatorial sun?

Passing over these vast Atlantic and Pacific seas, in ships so well fitted up for the comfort of passengers,

with accurate charts, and lighthoused capes, and islands of even a few acres all well known to the navigators of to-day, by which even circumnavigation of our globe is brought up to the pleasure of a picnic excursion, I. cannot but wonder at and admire the intrepidity of such men as Columbus and Jacques Cartier, Dampier and Cook, and a host of others who have, by their self-sacrificing zeal, made known the existence of broad continents and islands innumerable, abounding with mineral wealth and fertile soil, with great rivers of pure water, magnificent scenery, with a boundless store of native fruits and animals, which the Divine Hand had supplied for the support and pleasure of civilized humanity or aboriginal tribes.

Among these worthies, the two men whose names are at the head of this chapter are deserving of a place. Their efforts may not have been on so extended a scale as some whom I have mentioned above, nor may the results have been equal. Their spirit was the same, however, and their end was that of many who have undertaken that kind of work-a work which must be done by some noble souls such as they, or our earth for the greater part might remain a vast howling wilderness forever.

While the coasts of Australia were well known, and the southern portions of the continent settled, towns

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