Narrative of a Voyage from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria

Melbourne: Printed at the Herald Office, 1862. First Edition. Paperback. Very Good. Melbourne, Printed at the Herald Office, 1862. Duodecimo, 16 pages. Later quarter leather and papered boards (bound without the wrappers); title page a little foxed, with two early inkstamps lightly (and almost entirely) erased from it; a very good copy of a great rarity. 'The "Firefly", chartered by the Government of Victoria to convey stores, &c., for the exploration party sent in search of the ill-fated explorers, Burke and Wills, left Melbourne on July 29th, 1861, under orders to proceed to Brisbane, to take those who undertook to search for the missing men, and their horses. The explorers, horses and stores were to be landed at such point on the Albert River as Captain Norman of the colonial steamer "Victoria", might deem desirable. The "Firefly" encountered heavy weather and was eventually totally wrecked on Sir Charles Hardy's Island. This narrative is the captain's justification of his conduct' (Ferguson 11202). Provenance: Edward Edgar Pescott (1872-1954), horticulturalist, naturalist, author and book-collector, with his surname signature in pencil on the title page.