Milton Lewis, A rum state: alcohol and state policy in Australia, 1788–1988 , Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992, pp. vi, 231, Austral. $24.95, (9-780644-220248).

Abstract

AbstractCOL. WARBURTON well deserves any honours which he may have received; for the sake of increasing knowledge he has performed as bold a feat of travel as is on record. With his son, Mr. J. W. Lewis, two Afghan camel-drivers, and two natives, he set out on April 15, 1873, from Alice Springs, in E. long. 133° 53′ 14″, S. lat. 23° 40′, about 1,120 miles north from Adelaide, and travelled right across the centre of the Australian continent, reaching the western side in January 1874. Col. Warburton's narrative in the book before us consists of the record which he kept day by day of his progress. The party had sixteen camels, and were provisioned for six months. Experience has shown that to explore Central Australia camels alone are of any use, horses being totally unable to bear up against the universal scarcity of water, and the bristling spinifex stalks which cover the ground almost everywhere, and which cut their legs to pieces. Col. Warburton's journal, not long after the start, becomes a painful record of a daily hunt after water, a hunt which was often unsuccessful. During the greater part of the journey man and beast were in a chronic state of parching thirst. The country crossed over is as arid and desolate a wilderness as can well be conceived, consisting mainly of low sandy hills covered almost everywhere with the above-mentioned spinifex, occasionally varied by a salt marsh, a few hills, and rarely a few trees. Indeed, the whole country from 121° to 131° E. long. is one great sandy desert. Bustards, one or two species of pigeons, owls, rats, a small species of kangaroo, swarms of torturing flies and ants, were met with, the last-mentioned with painful frequency. Natives were also seen, and they proved perfectly harmless and generally shy, and some of them Col. Warburton describes as handsome and well made.Journey across the Western Interior of Australia. By Col. Peter Egerton Warburton. With an Introduction and Additions by Charles H. Eden. Edited by H. W. Bates. With Illustrations and a Map. (London: Sampson Low and Co., 1875.)