Australia Twice Traversed | Page 8

Investigator; as Flinders himself might well have
been called. The most peculiar of these features is the patch at what
Flinders called the head of the Great Australian Bight; these sandhills
rise to an elevation of several hundred feet, the prevailing southerly
winds causing them to slope gradually from the south, while the
northern face is precipitous. In moonlight I have seen these sandhills, a
few miles away, shining like snowy mountains, being refracted to an
unnatural altitude by the bright moonlight. Fortunate indeed it was for
Eyre that such relief was afforded him; he was unable to penetrate at all
into the interior, and he brought back no information of the character
and nature of the country inland. I am the only traveller who has
explored that part of the interior, but of this more hereafter.
About this time Strezletki and McMillan, both from New South Wales,
explored the region now the easternmost part of the colony of Victoria,
which Strezletki called Gipp's Land. These two explorers were rivals,
and both, it seems, claimed to have been first in that field.
Next on the list of explorers comes Ludwig Leichhardt, a surgeon, a
botanist, and an eager seeker after fame in the Australian field of
discovery, and whose memory all must revere. He successfully
conducted an expedition from Moreton Bay to the Port Essington of
King--on the northern coast--by which he made known the
geographical features of a great part of what is now Queensland, the
capital being Brisbane at Moreton Bay. A settlement had been
established at Port Essington by the Government of New South Wales,
to which colony the whole territory then belonged. At this settlement,
as being the only point of relief after eighteen months of travel,
Leichhardt and his exhausted party arrived. The settlement was a
military and penal one, but was ultimately abandoned. It is now a cattle
station in the northern territory division of South Australia, and belongs
to some gentlemen in Adelaide.
Of Leichhardt's sad fate in the interior of Australia no tidings have ever
been heard. On this fatal journey, which occurred in 1848, he
undertook the too gigantic task of crossing Australia from east to west,
that is to say, from Moreton Bay to Swan River. Even at that period,
however, the eastern interior was not all entirely unknown, as
Mitchell's Victoria River or Barcoo, and the Cooper's and Eyre's Creeks
of Sturt had already been discovered. The last-named watercourse lay

nearly 1000 miles from the eastern coast, in latitude 25 degrees south,
and it is reasonable to suppose that to such a point Leichhardt would
naturally direct his course--indeed in what was probably his last letter,
addressed to a friend, he mentions this watercourse as a desirable point
to make for upon his new attempt. But where his wanderings ended,
and where the catastrophe that closed his own and his companions'
lives occurred, no tongue can tell. After he finally left the furthest
outlying settlements at the Mount Abundance station, he, like the lost
Pleiad, was seen on earth no more. How could he have died and where?
ah, where indeed? I who have wandered into and returned alive from
the curious regions he attempted and died to explore, have
unfortunately never come across a single record or any remains or
traces of those long lost but unforgotten braves. Leichhardt originally
started on his last sad venture with a party of eight, including one if not
two native black boys. Owing, however, to some disagreement, the
whole party returned to the starting point, but being reorganised it
started again with the same number of members. There were about
twenty head of bullocks broken in to carry pack-loads; this was an
ordinary custom in those early days of Australian settlement.
Leichhardt also had two horses and five or six mules: this outfit was
mostly contributed by the settlers who gave, some flour, some bullocks,
some money, firearms, gear, etc., and some gave sheep and goats; he
had about a hundred of the latter. The packed bullocks were taken to
supply the party with beef, in the meantime carrying the expedition
stores. The bullocks' pack-saddles were huge, ungainly frames of wood
fastened with iron-work, rings, etc.
Shortly after the expedition made a second start, two or three of the
members again seceded, and returned to the settlements, while
Leichhardt and his remaining band pushed farther and farther to the
west.
Although the eastern half of the continent is now inhabited, though
thinly, no traces of any kind, except two or three branded trees in the
valley of the Cooper, have ever been found. My belief is that the only
cause to be assigned for their destruction is summed up in the dread
word "flood." They were so far traced into the valley