(Cheers.) Gentlemen, in the page of Australian Exploration, which is the sentiment attached to my toast--in its pages there are to be read too many tragic stories.

We cannot think of the history of exploration without thinking with regret of some of the names connected with it.

What an extraordinary page is that of Leichardt, of whom it has been said no man '-- knows his place of rest Far in the cedar shade.' "And yet so great is the interest which is taken in his fate that the wildest stories of a convict in the gaols of a neighbouring colony have been of interest to us, and have caused some of our fellow Australians to send out a party to see if something could not still be heard of that explorer.

Then think of Burke and Wills, and what a tragic tale was theirs--so nearly saved, so closely arrived to a place of safety, and yet to miss it after all! I daresay there are hundreds here who, like myself, saw their remains taken through our streets in the gloomy hearse on the road to that colony which they had served so well; and we know that now the country where they laid down their lives is brought under the hand of pastoral settlement.

They were the heroes of other lands; but have we not heroes also of our own?
(Loud cheering.) Have we not here the likeness of a man who knew not what fear was, because he never saw fear who carried out the thorough principle of the Briton in that he always persevered to the end?
And then, coming nearer to our own time, speaking by weeks and months, had we not our opportunity of entertaining in the city the leader of an expedition that successfully passed its way through the desert to the shores of Western Australia?
I refer to Colonel Warburton.