Dr Mueller, F.R.S.
Melbourne
With reference to your letter of the 25th April last,1 transmitting an extract from a letter addressed to you by Mr Pemberton Walcott of this Colony respecting a story circulated by Natives that some white men had died to the N. E. of the Murchison River, I have the honor to inform you that every inquiry has been made into this report, and that there does not appear to be any reason to alter the opinion already expressed to you that there was no foundation for the rumour that has reached you
Enclosed is a Copy of a Report from a very intelligent Constable of the Mounted Police specially detailed by His Excellency the Governor to make enquiry into the matter,2 and also a Copy of a Memorandum from a Settler resident on the Murchison River, in whom every reliance may be placed.3
F.P.B.
July? See notes to M to F. Barlee, 26 July 1865 (in this edition as 65-07-26a).
Presumably Constable Watson; see M to F. Barlee, 26 November 1865.
Neither the report not the memorandum has been found. Some additional details of their contents are provided by a report published in 'The search for Leichhardt', Australasian, 25 November 1865, p. 9, col. a:
We are informed by Dr. Mueller that, in answer to his inquiries, he received by last mail a letter from the Colonial Secretary of West Austraia, the Hon. F. Barlee, intimating that, by order of His Excellency Governor Hampton, a constable had been purposely despatched to the Murchison River, to ascertain the truthfulness of a report there afloat, that, according to the sayings of the natives, a party of Europeans coming from the East had perished on the upper part of that river. The inquiries of Constable Watson among the aborigines, confirmed by Mons. de Bibra, a pastoral tenant of the remotest station of the locality, disproves entirely the rumour. ['Mons. de Bibra' is almost certainly C. L. von Bibra, who settled in the area in which Augustus Oldfield collected for M in 1859 (see B59.12.01, p. 209 under Halgania bebrana). It could, however, be his brother F. L. von Bibra, who joined him some time during 1865.]
The article concludes by discussing various reports of the progress of McIntyre's 1864 expedition published in the UK press, including the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 300- 5, and the Athenaeum (23 September 1865, pp. 408-9), that gave a long summary of a paper read to the Geography and Ethnology section of the meeting of the British Association, '"M'Intyres journey across Australia and discovery of traces of Leichhardt" by Dr. F. Mueller (Melbourne)'. The attribution of the paper to M is doubtful; it is very similar to the account in the Proceedings of the RGS, which was stated to have been 'communicated by Dr. Mueller'.
Please cite as “FVM-65-10-06a,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on