AustLit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

The Honorable David Wynford Carnegie (1871-1900), explorer,  wrote an account of five years on the goldfields and in the far interior of Western Australia, having joined the gold rush to Coolgardie in 1892. Leading several exploring expeditions through the arid Western Australian countryside, Carnegie noted that anyone "looking for stirring adventures, hairbreadth escapes from wild animals and men, will be disappointed." According to Carnegie, an adventurer in the Australian bush has "no exciting escapades with dangerous beasts, to spur him on" but Carnegie assured readers that the traveller does has nature, death from thirst, and possible attacks from local Aboriginal groups with which to contend. The work detailed his early days in the colony, in particular in Coolgardie, his travels through the interior of Western Australia, the Kimberley desert, quartz and gold mining, and his engagements with local Aboriginal populations. Spinifex and Sand is extensively illustrated, written in an engaging and conversational first person narrative, and at times is sensational in prose and anecdote. Carnegie, son of the Earl of Southesk, was awarded the Gill medal by the Royal Geographical Society for his 4,800 km inland exploration of Western Australia even though his treatment of Aboriginal people was controversial, and he was publicly criticised for his actions. In 1899 Carnegie went to northern Nigeria as an assistant resident under Sir Frederick Lugard but was killed during a minor skirmish. His sister Helena M. Carnegie privately published his Letters from Nigeria (1902).