From William Landsborough   24 June 1884

Loch Lamerough Caloundra

Mooloolah P.O. Queensland

June 24 1884

My Dear Baron von Mueller

After the great exertions you have made in leaving no stone unturned in trying to discover the fate of the great explorer Dr Leichhardt and as I have already corresponded with you and you have kindly published the views I held respecting that great man¹ I need not apologize for re opening the subject — I think there is some thing to be learned that we do not know about his route and perhaps about his fate from the aborigines. He left Mount Abundance near Roma² in April 1848 — and I have hardly given up hope of some of the Leichhardt party being still alive under the care of some wild aboriginal tribe

Until of late years it would have been almost impossible to have had the assistance of the aborigines for any great distance beyond Roma for they were wild and difficult to communicate with, but I think long before this they should have at least been questioned more than they have been respecting Leichhardt

The Aborigines are very wild for years after their rude contact with the Colonists. The settlers have a good reason to be afraid of the aborigines and the aborigines have far greater reason to be afraid of the settlers. In some of the frontier districts as many in a year as ten per cent of the inhabitants have been killed by the aborigines This was the case I have been told for several years on the Dawson valley, it is sad to think how many were killed and how many aborigines were also killed. Those valuable lives on both sides to some extent I have often thought might have been spared if the matter had received that attention which it deserved at that period —But to return, the settlers at the time had to give high wages, so this state of things was ruinous to them and most dreadful to the aborigines Taking the settlers view of it they said for their own sakes they were kindly disposed to the blacks but that the blacks were difficult to manage and they having to attend to other matters they did not blame themselves they said for their rough treatment of them which was merely done with the view of making the country quiet for man and beast

In these troublous times the aborigines became so wild that they were seldom seen by the settlers and when they were sometimes taken by surprise by the settlers they were very much afraid and it was impracticable to get any information from them[.] I have always expected that when the blacks became quiet and the young ones learned to speak English that it would be possible to ascertain every bit of the route traversed by Dr Leichhardts party —

Allow me at this place to speak of what George Mr E. G. Clerks who was at Mount Abundance near Roma when the party left there in April 1848 — he told me "I was the last to see the last of his party — Dr Leichhardt sent back to me for a spade which he said might be required to sink for water and I gave his messenger a good spade and received in exchange a shovel —

Some time afterwards the Government having learned of an aboriginal report that Dr Leichhardts party had been killed by the blacks commissioned Mr Hovendon Hely to follow on their trail and ascertain if such was the case, — Mr Hely had been with Dr Leichhardt in one of his former expeditions. He hoped to have been able to have got great assistance from the blacks and got some to go a short way with him but they did not go from tribe to tribe in the way he hoped to have got them to have gone — They were too wild at that time I suppose to do so —Fortunately he managed to find a mark tree of Leichhardts on the Warrigo³ and ascertained that Dr Leichharts party had not been killed at the place at least where they were said by the blacks to have been killed. Years afterwards the Honble A. C. Gregory found a tree on the Barcoo which he believed was marked by Dr. Leichhardt — and in 1865 Mr Macintyre was shown a tree marked L on the Gilliat river at a point about 150 miles inland from Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria — All that can be said of these marked trees is that if Dr. Leichhardt did not mark them no one else knows who else could have done so as no explorer was known to have been any where in their locality — Traces of explorers are often seen many years afterwards. — I remember 13 years after Dr Leichhardt had been on the Isaac river I had his book in my hand near Coxen's peak and a Mr C. A. Kerr & I managed to find where his party killed a bullock and some of the bones that had been smashed for the marrow on that occasion— We found also in good preservation a tree marked L on the bank of Skull creek But to return to the aborigines when they meet from different localities if they know English they speak to each other in that language —

What mines of interesting knowledge the aborigines must have but which as they are perishing fast will if not taken from them soon will be lost utterly. Unfortunately it requires the greatest patience even in the most favorable circumstances to get this information, they are like children at their lessons when they are questioned, it is hard to keep up their attention, and on the other hand if they know what the questioner wants to know they think him very stupid if he does not quickly understand what they try to tell him, people are apt to ask them leading questions and to these they are disposed to reply in the way that they think will be most pleasing, it is no easy matter to get information from the aborigines as I have said, if it was I daresay we would know all about Dr. Leichhardts route and probably his fate. There are men perhaps who if they could afford it would take a pleasure in getting all the Blacks know from them — and if such men would come to the front I think after all the federal talk the whole of the Australian Colonies to clear up the Leichhardt mystery would support them. The narrative of such a work would be most interesting to the whole reading world and so very different to the usual tales of the Australian explorers which have only been interesting to a certain and rather small class of readers Though Dr Leichhardt and a few others showed that instead of being of that character they might be made most instructive and amusing to a very large class of readers

But taking every thing into consideration it is strange how little of Leichhardts route has been learned from the aborigines — at Roma Leichhardts last starting point in April 1848. I saw by last May papers that a considerable number of blacks appeared for the blankets that are issued to them by the Queensland Government — amongst them I daresay there were old blacks who remember the first explorer who passed Roma namely Sir Thomas Mitchell and that they might be awakened to the remembrance also of Dr Leichhardt especially as he had probably goats which the likelihood is, are animals of a character they had never seen previously in their lives

Blacks I believe live to a great age. I should not be surprised by seeing blacks marked by small pox for several were mentioned to me by name with the marks at the Maroochy⁴ some years ago and they must have been of a good age as there has not been small pox in Queensland during the memory of its earliest inhabitants It would be more interesting to the world at large to read an account of a search for Leichhardts route from Roma, but it would be more easily done from the Gilliat River or from some other place where Dr Leichhardts party were the first Colonists who had ever been seen by the aborigines.

Roma and the Gilliat river are about 650 miles distant from each other as the crow flies, but Dr Leichhardt probably in travelling between these points traversed a very much greater distance for he liked to have his path along a watercourses, and in his Expedition to Port Essington⁵ it is wonderful how lucky he was in being able to do this from the Condamine river to the watershed of the Gulf of Carpentaria country

But to return to his Expedition from Roma to the Gilliat, between these places there were probably about twenty tribes of natives when Leichhardt traversed it and the country having all been settled for at least twenty years the blacks are all quiet and the young blacks of the tribes that have not perished no doubt know the English language and if they did not know the route of Leichhardt themselves they could learn it from the old blacks — I need not say that the country from the Gilliat river in any direction for hundreds of miles has become settled country for many years past

At page 169 in my copy of Messrs Gordon & Gotches Australian Handbook,⁶ there is the following paragraph with a note in the margin. "In June 1882 Mr E. S. Flint Telegraph master at Alice Springs⁷ reported he believed he had discovered traces of Leichhardt, he met a friendly tribe of Natives in lat 22° 45 Lon 136° 35' — About 100 miles east of the Telegraph line who corroberated the information as to white men having died in that vicinity many years ago, and said that the natives of the next tribe could show the spot. Through his supplies running short Mr Flint was unable to follow up the clue."

"Shameful that this should not have been thoroughly investigated, an aborigine now near the locality in Queensland might perhaps be got to assist—" the spot is about 525 miles South westerly from the Gilliat river

I remain my dear Baron von Mueller

yours very truly

W. Landsborough

Baron von Mueller

Melbourne

Victoria