Ferdinand von Mueller

Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The Leichhardt search', Inquirer and commercial news (Perth, WA), 25 November 1868, p. 3 (B68.11.02). It is introduced by ' The following is an extract from a letter we have received from Dr. Mueller, dated Botanical Garden, Melbourne, 6th instant:—'.

The diary of the Mongers’ 'Expedition to the north-eastward of York' was published in the Inquirer and commercial news, 14 October 1868, p. 3, and included the statement: 'During the evening the native Jimmy told me the particulars about the white men killed by the natives about 20 years ago. Jimmy said it occurred when he was a little boy, and I should take him to be now from 30 to 35 years old. He said he knew well one of the principal men concerned, a native named "Bowering," who died only a few months since. It took place at a spot he had seen, at a spring near the bank of a very large lake, so large he said that it looked like the sea as seen from Rottnest, eleven days' journey from "Ninghan" in a fine country; the white men were rushed upon while making a damper, and clubbed and speared; he had often seen one of the axes that formed a portion of the plunder.'

Not positively identified. The specimens in the Melbourne herbarium collected by a 'Cooke' from Western Australia postdate the 1860s (http://avh.ala.org.au/, accessed 2 September 2015). It may be an error for Charles Cooke Hunt, see Allan Hughan to M, 29 March 1867.