The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work

McMILLAN AN

Maneroo tribe, so that if the party was small, it was very select. On the fifth day McMillan got through to the country watered by the Buchan River, and, from the summit of an elevation which he called Mount Haystack, he obtained a most satisfactory view over the surrounding region. The next night, McMillan, awakened by a noise, found Jimmy Gibbu bending ove

se it led them to the point of its embouchure in the lakes of the south coast. He named Lake Victoria, and then directed his course to the west, where he discovered and named the Nicholson and Mitchell rivers. He was so deeply impressed with the resemblance of the country he had just been over to some parts of Scotland, that he called the district by the now obsolete name of Caledonia Australis. On January the 23rd, 1840, he was out again and discovered and named the Macalister River, an

UNT STR

had undertaken, as he was gathering material for his well-known work, The Physical Description of New South Wales, Victoria, and Van Diemen's Land. He ascended the south

don both horses and packs, and fight its way through a dense undergrowth on a scanty ration of one biscuit and a slice of bacon per day, varied with an occasional native bear. It was here that the Count, who was an athletic man, found that his hardy constitution stood the party in good stead. So weakened and exhausted were his

ATRICK

e Condamine River, actually before that river had been identified as a tributary of the Darling. There was a general impression that the Condamine flowed north and east, and finally found its way through the main range to the Pacific. In 1841,

DWIG LE

Leich

and undoubtedly fruitful expedition. But for his mysterious fate mention of his name would not stir the hearts of men as it does. Had he returned from his final venture beaten, it must hav

e three-year military course. The consequence was that he was prosecuted as a deserter, and sentenced in contumaciam. Afterwards, Alexander von Humboldt succeeded, by describing his services to science on his first expedi

rsonal distinction, with high and noble aims, he yet lacked that ready sympathy and feeling of comradeship that attract men. Leichhardt's followers never desired t

enerally predicted -- and with much reason -- that he would fail. But when he set out on his second and disastrous j

1845); Mitchell (1845 and 184

e journal of the trip reads to a man accustomed to bush life like the fable of The Babes in the Wood; yet he managed to blunder throu

seemed to prefer for companions men like himself, who could not detect this failing, as is evident from a letter written by him to W. Hull, of Melbourne

y, and perfect willingness to obey my orders, even though given harshly..

moral principle would be as acceptable to an explorer as a good bushman of doubtful morality. It causes one to inquire whether the devoted men who toiled for Sturt, private soldiers and prisoners of the Crown, were men of sound moral principle? This extract affords an

t occasion was near Russell's, so that the man spoke from personal knowledge: "It's my belief that if Dr. Leichhardt do it at all, 'twill be more by good luck than management. Why, sir, he ha

nown as bushmanship. One fixed idea of his was, that in dry country if one can only keep on far enough one is bound to come to water: a theory plausible enough if it could be carried out to its logical conclusion; but the application of which often involves a physical impossibility. And it must be taken into consideration that Leic

challenge the desert, thinking that he must succeed where better men had been denied even the hope of success. When his last expedition comes to be reviewed, a more detailed discussion of the probabilities of a successful issue to it will be m

I went to his quarters to his window. He was dressing himself; I did put in my head; he did jump out of the other window and I stood there wondering. Soon many

elief in himself and his mission. In that belief he was honestly loyal. His conception of his duty was of the highest, and in its interest he would, and did, make every sacrifice in his power. If some

ld have achieved greater success than many men who have filled that pos

1st of October, 1844, he left Jimbour station on the Darling Downs, on the trip that was destined to make his name as an explorer. His preparations were on a much smaller scale than Mitchell's. Considering the importance of the undertaking, his party was absurdly small. He had with him six white and two black men, seventeen horses, sixteen head of cattle and four kangaroo dogs; and his supply of provisions was equally meagre. His plan of starting from Moreton Bay to Port Essington differed considerably from Mitchell's proposed journey to the Gulf from Fort Bourke, but although longer and more roundabout, it would be a safer route for his little party to adopt, as they would keep to the comparatively well-wate

the natives that they had ceased almost to think of a possible hostile encounter with them. This fancied immunity was broken in a most tragic manner on the night of the 28th of June, 1845. It was a calm, quiet evening, and the party were peacefully encamped beside a chain of shallow lagoons. The doctor was thinking out his plans for the next few days, Gilbert was planting a few lilies he had gathered, as was his nightly habit when any flowers were available. Roper and the others were grouped around the fir

ft unmarked, and a large fire built and consumed above it to hide all traces of it fro

r he mistook for the Albert, so named by Captain Stokes during his marine survey of the north coast. A.C. Gregory rectified the error in after years, and gave the river the name of the lost explorer for whom he was then searching. With fast-dwindling supplies, lagging footsteps, and depressed spirits, the expedition travelled slowly on to the south-west corner of the Gulf where, in crossing a larg

prince of explorers. But what captivated public fancy was a certain halo of romance that clung to the journey on account of the reported death of Leichhardt, a report that gained general credence. His unexpected return invested him with a romance which -- fortunately for his re

rned to Adelaide from his excursion into the interior with a terrible tale of thirst and suffering. But this time the hero of the hour experienced no difficulty in obtaining funds and other necessary aids. The party, when organised, travelled from the Hunter River to the Condamine, taking with them their outfit of mules, cattle, and goats. When th

that by keeping to the tropical line he would gain some climatic assistance. Whatever the cause, the result was disastrous. The wet season and monsoonal rains caught the party amongst the sickly acacia scrubs of that region; and hemmed in by mud and bog they lost their stock, consumed their provisions, and made no progress. Henceforth the narrative is one of semi-starvation, varied by gorging on

eptember 7th, 1907, at Sydney. The las

f New South Wales, was one of the expedition, and the last surviving member of any expedition connected with Leichhardt. He wrote a booklet in which he vigorously d

ween the upper Condamine and Mitchell's latest track, he, in company with two or three of his late companions, left Cecil Plains for that purpose; he went as far as the Balonne

ambitious project might be forestalled, he now made strong and strenuous efforts to organise another party. He succeed

ll adapted for the work that lay before it. A few words of the Reverend W.W.B. Clarke, the well-known geologi

nd, a brother-in-law of Leichhardt, came from Germany to join him before starting, and he told me, when I asked him what his qualifications for the journey

that a very poor opinion of the men as experienc

40 pounds of powder. His last letter is dated the 3rd of April, 1848, from McPherson's station on the Cogoon, but in it he speaks only of the country he has passed through, and nothing of his intended route. Since the residents of this then outlying station lost sight of him, no sure clue as to the fate of him and his companions has ever come to light. The t

y and inconsistent have been put forward and seriously considered. At the same time, the only two reliable marks,

nearly one hundred miles he sent back a man with a report that he had passed through some splendid pastoral land, but this is not at all likely to be true. The first indicati

he bark about four feet from the ground, and near it the stumps of some small trees that had been cut with a sharp axe, also a deep notch cut in the side of a sloping tree, apparently to support the ridge-pole of a tent,

River. Gregory then went up the Thomson River but found no other mark, and returning followed that river and Cooper's Creek down to South Australia. This camp of Leichhardt's is easily understo

thickest timber remained unconsumed. Search was made for marked trees, but none were found, nor were there any fragments of iron, leather, or other material of the equipment of an exploring party, or of any bones of animals other than those common to Australia. Had an exploring party been destroyed there, there would most likely be some indications, and it may therefore be inferred that the party proceeded on its journey. It could not have been a camp of Leichhardt's in 1845, as it is 100 miles south-west of his route to Port Essington, and it was only six or seven

Thomson, he probably followed that river to its head, and crossing the main watershed regained and re-pursued his track of 1845, as far as the Roper, of which river Elsey Creek is a tributa

ome would have persisted in changing the direction they were following, and, led on by some mad delirious fancy in seeing water indications in some rock or bush, would have separated and staggered on to die alone. Their baggage would have been left strewn over the desert wh

mps, J.F. Mann, of whose companionship with Leichhardt mention has already been made, often stated that