From Ferdinand von Mueller to David Lindsay   5 May 1892

5/5/92.

Your kind letter,¹ dear Mr Lindsay, ought to have been answered some days² ago, but I have lately been not at all well, and I also have been extra-pressed by work in the Department through its reorganisation with largely reduced working means. Before I received your letter, it had already occurred to my thoughts, that it might be possible, to resume exploration from the east on a limited scale, and as you say, it would be a "thousand pity", if this extraordinary favorable season, — such as may not reoccur for a series of years was lost to effect the last main-stroke of desert exploration, and crown the whole late efforts of the hon Sir Thomas Elder by the revealing of Leichhardt's fate!

If I was allowed, to offer a suggestion, it would be, that a still shorter period to the operations of a mere "flying party" should be allotted, than you estimate, and that proportionately the expenditure should also be still more diminished. The Adelaide Maecenas³ has spent already so much for the geographic researches, that it would be really unfair to him, to ask for much more. Suppose you solicit about £1000. and the use of some Dromedaries for a swift light party during the next six months of cool weather. If on crossing the tropical western desert from somewhere near Central Mt Stuart⁴ to the sources of the De Grey's River⁵ the prospects are so grand, that the field should be kept longer, it will then be optional for Sir Thomas, to spend some more fund on the new expedition if he likes; — otherwise the mere return to the overland telegraph-line could not be very expensive, and be done even in summer. I feel sure, that by enquiries among the natives in the western tropic desert you will be led to the death-place of the Leichhardt-party!

Pray, remember me kindly to Sir Thomas, and accept the assurance of my best wishes for your own continued exploratory engagements.

Regardfully your

Ferd. von Mueller