Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The search for Leichhardt', Sydney morning herald, 11 July 1865, p. 5 (B65.07.06).

Sir, —

The generous sympathy evinced by the Sydney Morning Herald for many years towards the ill-fated Leichhardt, and also the feelings of friendly consideration experienced from you so often by myself, are to me guarantees that you will concede the favour of affording space in your columns for a reply to the recent remarks on Leichhardt's fate promulgated by a Warrego Squatter.

2

Sydney morning herald, 27 June 1865, p. 3.

His ideas exhibit so startling an unacquaintance with facts, that it would be unnecessary to combat his assertions were the evidence bearing on our missing explorer's discovery, and the undeserved oblivion of the great traveller readily accessible to all; or could all those who may read the epistle of the Warrego gentleman form from experience independently on the grave question before us, their judgment. Any one who has led the life of a squatter in the interior will always be entitled to deference for his views on such points, as to this controversy. But then a man of influence should, for that reason, be the more cautious in arriving at his conclusions. Had Leichhardt been aware, when he entered on his last arduous task that the desert country of Western Australia is more circumscribed than for many a year we had reason to suspect, it is possible, though by no means probable, that Leichhardt would have preferred to advance on more southern latitudes more westward than those he seemingly chose. But when but a few months before Leichhardt's last departure, the courageous Kennedy found it beyond his power to connect on the Barcoo

3

Barcoo River, Qld.

the surveys of Captain Sturt and Sir Thomas Mitchell, we may well imagine that the traveller, in whose fate now so warm an interest has arisen, took a warning from the experience just timely gained by his last predecessor in the field, and rather resolved to advance with a party of less swiftness to more northern positions for his final westerly course, where by his past investigations he could foresee the existence of a more promising country. Leichhardt was but too well aware, that on his constant leaning to water courses the progress and the safety of his party depended. This cautious foresight, of depending on river systems for his movements, induced him in his first world-famed expedition

4

From Brisbane to Port Essington, 1844-5.

to descend on the Lynd and Mitchell Rivers, more than 150 miles beyond the latitude of the southern extremity of the Carpentaria Gulf before he could be induced to relinquish the friendly guidance of these streams. At more recent dates we have seen the indomitable J. Macdouall Stuart in repeated attempts vainly endeavouring to reach the Upper Victoria River

5

NT.

from Ashburton Range for the nearest approach to the N. W. coast; if, therefore, this able traveller, placed even more advantageously for celerity of movement by safely depending on horses as animals of burden, was compelled to exist in a belt of comparatively fertile country from his intended direct route, and to diverge to the Roper River for gaining the coast, how much more likely is it that Leichhardt, with his oxen, was compelled, for the purpose of procuring water, to great detours. Indeed, he was distinctly prepared (and so he stated before he set out) for a deviation to the Gulf Rivers. It was not Leichhardt's intention to travel on the nearest route from the east to the west coast, but on the safest, and this safest route would, as subsequent discoveries have proved, be by moving from the waters of one of the coast rivers to the other. No one, whose opinion carries weight with it, will evince any surprise at Leichhardt's movement to the Flinders River.

6

Qld.

Indeed, as early as 1851, in a correspondence with the late Sir Thomas Mitchell, I pointed to the country in the immediate southern vicinity of the Gulf as the most promising for Leichhardt's search.

7

M to T. Mitchell, November 1851 (in this edition as 51-11-00).

Yet, as explored by me on another occasion,

8

B65.14.05?

there is a distant possibility, but certainly not a very great probability, that Leichhardt's party from its advanced northern camps, in a movement of regression may have been annihilated, as the natives wish us to believe at Bunderabala or some such as yet unexplored locality, of which, as I am unacquainted with the etymology of the word, I leave the exact spelling to linguists' research. It is, however, unfortunate for the Warrego Squatter, to quote Mr. Gideon Lang's authority as still bearing out the correctness of the statement of Leichhardt's fall on the waters of the Barcoo. That high-minded gentleman, animated anew by a desire to see Leichhardt's fate unveiled, has stepped spontaneously forward to declare his positive disbelief in the accounts given of Leichhardt's death, to which, until Mr. M'Intyre's journey, we gave more or less credence.

9

See G. Lang to M, 20 April 1865.

Indeed, Mr. Lang holds out a hope, even more vivid than my own, that Leichhardt and some of his companions may be still living under the protection (I never anticipate in servitude) of a native tribe. This opinion is shared by Landsborough, who justly compares Leichhardt's possible position after the loss of his horses, to that of a sailor cast ashore on an uninhabited strand; and the opinion of the possibility of Leichhardt's existence is alike publicly and spontaneously maintained by Calvert and Roper, the intelligent former companions of the missing explorer, by M'Kinlay, by Howitt, by men to whose opinion I shall attach infinitely more value than those of the Warrego Squatter. Howitt, moreover, in his long creditable stay, and in multifarious interrogations of the natives on the water system of Cooper's Creek,

10

During the Burke & Wills relief expedition that Howitt led to Cooper’s Creek.

could not obtain any tidings whatever of Leichhardt's party, though the savages communicated freely every information on Sturt's movements; while on the other hand we have learnt of the existence of marks of several other Leichhardtian camps leading from the Upper Barcoo in the direction of the Flinders River, and are even given to understand that white men coming from the east perished in the far interior of W. Australia. Nothing, however, is farther from my desire than to discourage a search at Bunderabala. The investigations wherever commenced will inevitably lead to that spot, if it really witnessed the horrors of Leichhardt's destruction. Accordingly I forwarded some time since to Mr. M'Intyre a very explicit record of the traditions of the natives furnished by a gentleman occupying one of the remotest stations towards Bunderabala. But if Leichhardt really succumbed so near to the Warrego settlements as is contended by my assailants; if in the total absence of any implements or other relics of the party; if though never any horses or mules returned; if, notwithstanding the varied and irreconcilable account of the natives of Leichhardt's death, still my assailant possessed such strong and indisputable evidence of Leichhardt's fate, it will remain an eternal reproach to him, that he did not evince a spark of that gallant spirit of Gideon Lang for setting the contradictory accounts at rest. Or if the locality, though comparatively so near, was not within the reach of him and the nearest border squatters who, undoubtedly, would have rendered him aid; humanity demanded from him to exercise his influence on a Government well known to be just and generous, to demonstrate the correctness of the native traditions by tangible proof. Concerning the marked trees recently discovered by Mr. Commissioner Boyd,

11

W. Carr Boyd; see 'search for Leichhardt', Brisbane courier, 19 June 1865, p. 3.

we require to learn whether they indicate positions of Leichhardt's outward route, or camps, or a line of retreat to the settlements. This is one of the questions Mr. M'Intyre's mission undoubtedly will solve. Be it understood, that gentleman is impeded by no instructions in the direction of his search. The ladies have entrusted the command of their expedition to a man in whose ability, judgment, and perseverance we need not place any doubt; and who, by local inquiry, will be best led on in his task. Of this, let me affirm all to

12

to all?

who have not listened without feeling to the pleading of the fair on our sympathy individual or rational, that the ladies — supported as they are in the righteousness of their cause by the most grateful aid, and by the cheering voices of some of the greatest geographers of Europe — are not likely to abandon the search until the clouds of contradictions, so long overhanging the calamitous fate of Ludwig Leichhardt, shall have been absolutely dispersed.

I am, Mr. Editor, with grateful reverence, yours,

Melbourne Botanic Gardens, 4th July.