Ferdinand von Mueller

Melbourne

3/10/81.

Allow me the privilege, dear Sir Henry, to express my warmest thanks for your noble action towards the sister of poor Leichhardt, in her great distress, while already at a venerable age.

1

Parkes had arranged for the NSW Government to make an ex gratia payment of £500 to Leichhardt's sister Henrietta Schmalfuss, who was in financial difficulties, to forestall her having to sell her house. See M to E. Behm, 12 October 1881.

If on a former occasion I ventured to plead Leichhardt's cause, I felt, that the relatives of the unfortunate explorer continued in great grief at such a loss as theirs, and that this sadness was augmented by the uncertainty how and where the unfortunate Caravam

2

Caravan?

succumbed.

I have myself not the slightest doubt, that the diaries of the Expedition were preserved by the natives, and are really obtained by Mr Skuthorpe, whose duty it was as the finder but not proprietor or owner of these precious relics to hand them over to the Government, and to trust to any fair reward, proportionate to the value of the journals and the exertions made by him to obtain them.

3

See M to H. Parkes, 21 May 1881.

When I urged a further search, it was not merely to verify the assertions, made many months ago by Mr Skuthorpe, but to see the real death-place of Leichhardt & his companions visited, where no one has been yet, and to ascertain, whether any truth in the rumour, that an other surviver, as insisted on by Hume, lived still further west with some tribe of the aborigines

4

See Perrin (1991).