Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF BURKE AND WILLS. AMBROSE KYTE—HOW AN IRISH LAD ATTAINED TO OPULENCE—HIS MUNIFICENT BENEFACTIONS—STAKTS AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION TO CROSS THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT—ROBERT O'HARA BURKE APPOINTED LEADER OF THE EXPEDITION—SETTING OUT AMIDST POPULAR ENTHUSIASM—THE FEAT SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISHED—BACKWARD MARCH OF THE TICTORS —A RACE FOR LIFE—SERIES OF FATAL MISTAKES—TRAGIC CLOSE OF A BRILLIANT ENTERPRISE—DEATH OF BURKE AND WILLS—KING SAVED BY THE BLACKS—IMPORTANT RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION.. "WE must regard him as one of the most striking instances of success which even Victoria affords. Of humble origin, and with but little education and few natural advantages, he, by a dexterous use of favourable circumstances, accumulated a large fortune and won his way to a leading place in the community. It is gratifying to be able to reflect that, when he had reached a position of affluence, besides performing many acts of charity known only within a limited circle, he distinguished himself by making several munificent donations to stimulate useful enterprise and advance the interests of the country in which his wealth had been won." It was in these words that the leading journal of Victoria concluded its account of the career of a remarkable Irish- Australian, whose life reads like a page from the " Arabian Nights' Entertainments." Leaving his home in Nenagh, County Tipperary, in his eighteenth year, Ambrose Kyte wasone of a number of young Irishmen of spirit and determination who had resolved on building homes for themselves in the distant south. On landing in Melbourne in 1840, he hired himself at ten shillings a week, but it was not long before his salary was doubled. In five years' time he was able to start business on his own account, and he succeeded so we...