Document information

Physical location:

Colonial Secretary's Office - letters received, acc. 36, vol. 632, ff. 189-92, State Records Office of Western Australia, Perth. 69.08.29

Plant names

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to Frederick Barlee, 1869-08-29. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1860-9/1869/69-08-29-final.odt>, accessed June 4, 2026

Melbourne bot Garden
29./8/69
Private.
I regret very much, dear Mr Barlee, that I am finally obliged to relinquish my favorite project of visiting West Australia this autumn. It was impossible for me to overcome the interposing obstacles. Our drought is not even yet broke! We have passed through many a weary month of rainless weather and the aspect of my gardens & parks is absolutely desolate. How it will end unless rain falls within the next weeks, I do not know. All water for 400 acres of ground has by steam power to be forced from the Yarra-River over the ridges. Even large West Australian
Banksia

Search for Banksia in

e have died off, altho water is supplied as far as the means allow. Rainwater tanks are empty since many months & all my people here are almost exclusively employed in carting and carrying water about. How all this will end I do not know. Our pastural runs are overstocked, thus the natural herbage & grasses get much diminished & keep no longer the soil cool as in years passed by. Timber is ruthless cut away or destroyed by the continual bush fires and the underwood gets destroyed by the same calamities & the traffic of pastoral animals. If we had not some mountain rages & especially the Alps to the East of us, many tracts of country would finally become waterless during the summer.
In my last letter I implored, that your Colony should at last do a share also in the Leichhardt search, especially as Mr Mongers & Mr Roes information from the natives points to his probably death place only 10 days beyond the ground travelled over by Mr Monger.
1
The most recent surviving letter, M to F. Barlee, 23 April 1869, urged that John Forrest lead the proposed party. See also notes to M to R. Murchison, 24 April 1869 (in this edition as 69-04-24a), and M to F. Barlee, 28 February 1869.
If this should prove to be so, then a small party organized & sent out to test the truth of this rumour need to be out only a few weeks! Now really — you must pardon me if I say so — that it would be a reproach to the colony, to take not this year a final decisive step to let this rumour at rest. You very generously assured me two years ago, that last year a final effort should be made & as hindrances occurred, I really implore you to carry out the design this year. It appears to me, that such a small undertaking need scarcely cost any cash. You have ample prison-labor & ample prison-material at your command, facilities which not elsewhere exist in Australia. I trust you will not think I will give utterances improper when I say, that it will cost not more to keep a few men employed in the field on exploration, than to support them elsewhere and among the thousands to select from, assuredly half a dozen might be found sufficiently trustworth
2
trustworthy?
to be sent away with a surveyor and a good bushman to carry out the project of the Leichhardt search. If such search proves unsuccessful, well then at least much geographical knowledge would be gained & W.A. would nobly have fulfilled its duties in the Leichhardt search like the Eastern colonies already have. I ventured to sketch out a plan of operation, such as I certainly after much field experience I should myself adopt, had it fallen to my happy lot to render myself free to take the field again. I suggested that a few oxen should be slaughtered at the last station & the boneless meat be dried in the air to be carried thus light in weight on packhorses. On the homeway the party might use the horses for food, as we did in Gregory's expedition, and proved that it could well be done. A surveyor or even a good bushman would suffice as leader especially if 2 or 3 natives are got as guides. If to the prisoners a promise was made, as in Sir Th Mitchells expeditions, that by good manful behaviour they should gain their liberty, they would exert themselfes to the utmost. I would warn not to wait for the supposed necessity of a scientific leader. Astonomers as a rule (of course I say so confidentially) are bad bushmen. A good stockman would do all that is necessary on a trip as that proposed. Scientific men can follow on the path of these pioneers. It is my firm opinion, that the work ought to be commenced early in May or even before, if possible. The party ought indeed to be at the outskirts of the settlements at the end of the hot season. Then all the cool weather is before them and long rides without water become not so distressing & discouraging to men & animals. Strong tin cylinders should be provided to be buckled & strapped to the top of the packs to be filled with water in localities where the last is met with. Thus the 2 or 3 going out reconnoitering can move with ease & perfect safety, especially if a supply is here and there carried to fall back on. It would have been still better, if a few Camels could have been got as I repeatedly suggested years ago. But with proper tin vessels & a man understanding the simple process of soldering in the case of leakage the want of Camels will not be felt so severely as it otherwise would be. Since it has fallen to your honorable lot to rule with the Commander of the troops with Capt Roe over the colony, you could not more lastingly stamp the epoch of your reign on the history of Australia, than by causing a dash to be made now at once into the interior. A few willing arms with good axes will cut any scrub! A few zealous & hardy men will get through or skirt any salt marshes, and a few high-minded & experienced men will readily ascertain from the natives what became of my poor countryman, illustrious but forsaken, & his party! It would not be an event of pleasurable reflection, if suddenly some squatter on a quiet few days ride found out the deathplace of the poor man, with a possibility of its being proved, that some of his companions and perhaps Leichhardt himself had lived there til a recent period! All this is within the reach of possibility as I pointed out in my lecture 5 years ago! Even if no success followed, then West Australia would have done, what it could; and the effort, whether effectual or not would throw great credit on all concerned.
Did success be realized in finding Leichhardts remains, perhaps his journals or even perhaps some of his companions alife, then the party will have established high claims on public gratitude & I for one would exert myself to the utmost by collecting subscriptions (never always flatly refused) for manifesting public approval of gallant deeds!
Moreover if the surgeon and other intelligent members of the party collected beetles, birds minerals, plants &c, I would undertake, that the collections became described and we could here from Victoria offer thus a literary gift on such collections. My friend Count de Casteelnau would at once describe the beetles, Prof M'Coy the minerals, I could absolve the plants &c &c &c. All this would cost your Government nothing except perhaps part of the printing expenses. Personally I cannot help you in fitting out the party. For advise you can have no higher authority than the venerable Capt Roe. Monetary private means I cannot offer, for I have sunk a private fortune in this department here, and have not even established a domesticity, spent 30 (thirty!) of my best years for science & have now — unprovided as I am in the evening of my life—nothing left but a good conscience & a spotless name!
If the party can be so organized as to be out for four month, that is to say the whole cool season, then that would be all the more creditable! But if this is too complicated and expensive, let them be out from the last stations at least for two months . That would suffice to learn whether Leichhardt perished on the Great Lake! What is this fabulous or real Lake?! so near the settlements. To learn this is as interesting to Geography as to penetrate in [Yucatan], or to unfold the monuments of bygone races in the easter island, or to ascend the snowy alps of New Guinea or to traverse the Moon-Mountains of Central Africa! Indeed it is one of the greatest problems of geographical science to be solved now a days: what is the nature of the far interior of Western Australia, territory assigned actually for the most part to the rule of your Government. I should regard it a favor, if to 2 or 3 of the localities likely to be discovered I might be able to give geographical names.
In April 1870 we have to celebrate the centenary jubilee of Cook taking possession of Australia for the British Crown. I wished, we could on that day unfold on Capt Cooks statue a full map of the Continent, which one dashing track of a spirited man in a few months as far as your territory is concerned might complete.
I think you might even find a draftsman for sketching the landscapes, a surgeon, a surveyor a farrier &c among the better class of your prisoners for a task like this. So I trust no obstacle will any longer intervene in clearing up the mysteries, about which we learn from Mr Monger & Mr Roe & sincerely hope that ere many months shall have passed, we will have a fair delineation of the great inland lake on the Map of Australia.
Deeply sorry that I cannot myself share in this glorious enterprise I remain your very regardful
Ferd. von Mueller
I am certain , if Providence spares my life for a few years yet, to spend a good while in W.A., but when it will be I cannot say.