25/9/93.
It is with deep regret, dear Mr Macdonald, that I find myself by the severity of my present pulmonary sufferings utterly discapacitated to enter on the long Journey to Adelaide. I need not assure you, how sorry I feel, not to be able participating in this important scientific gathering,2 the geographic section, under your able Presidency having also a special practical interest to us here at this momentous occasion.3 I have asked Mr Holtze, to introduce to you in the geographic section Mr Rasp,4 as he might be inclined to foster the proposed new search for traces of Dr Leichhardt and the party lost since 1848, he being a Compatriot of that Exploration Martyr.
Perhaps you will let the hon Secr. of the geogr. Section5 read the following brief notes which contain the essential points on which I would have enlarged in my intended speech.6 Leichhardt was last heard of from the lagoon on the Fitzroy-downs; he had horses, oxen and mules, but no wheeled vehicle, so that the finding of remnants of a cart near an L-tree not far from the Macdonell-Ranges, supposed to indicate the presense of members of the Leichhardt-party there, does rest on wrong grounds, Mr Thomson on my request having recently again ascertained at M'Pherson's Station,7 that Leichhardt had no cart with him, which indeed would have been too great a hinderance in his progress.8 The discovery of what may have been a Leichhardt-camp on the Elsey-River by Gregory,9 of L. trees on the Alice and Thomson-River10 by Gregory and by Walker, and the finding of L trees and two very old horses on the Flinders River11 in 1865 by Macintyre,12 and the tradition of the natives at Johanna-spring as recorded by McPhee,13 of a party of 3 Whites and an aboriginal coming with horses very long ago from the north-East and perishing for want of water 10 days walk south-east of Johannah-Spring and further also the information brought by Colonel Warburton about L-trees near the Johannah-spring — all tend to show, that Leichhardt did adhere to his original plan of skirting (by keeping towards the northcoast) Sturt's and other great Central Australian deserts and in all probability thus did accomplish 2/3 of his gigantic and perilous task! To search for his death place from the east, would be a far less hopeful plan, than starting a small party from Lagrange-Bay,14 for which the Chevalier Giles or some other explorer, readily would be available and for which errand in the cause of humanity much facility is afforded by Dromedaries being at command. At Johannah Spring Guides could be taken to the oasis 10 days further south-easterly, where a friendly tribe saw the corpses of perished Explorers, and where still an axe and other remnants of the party are kept. This would simultaneously be a penetration right into the centre of the great north-western desert, would doubtless lead to the discovery of new pastural and gold-country at a comparatively limited expense, would be a definite testing on a certain line as regards the rumours set afloat by the Johannah spring natives, who could have no object in offering these traditions quite on their own acord merely to invent misleading stories.
This would be worthily following up the searches of Hovendon Hely, Gregory, Macintyre, (the Emissary of the brave Melbourne-Ladies Leichhardt-Search Committee of 1865, most of them now numbering with the dead!15 and the Adelaide meeting might decide by formal resolutions on the indicated new Expedition and on securing there and then the fund for it at once; it would be a glorious act, the melancholic lustre of which would add for all times to the renown of the Adelaide-Meeting of 1893. My own first appeal on behalf of Dr Leichhardt and his companions was made about 1850 indeed also from South Australia, when a letter from Sir Thomas Mitchell to me was published in the "South Australian",16 and when in the German Newspaper of Adelaide I proposed at some length of detail a search from the Albert-River17 southwards, views which subsequent events proved quite recommendatory at the time
This years season is singularly favorable for any Australian desert-travels, and Leichhardts last position cannot be very far from the boundary of SA, which colony he also much enriched by his early northern discoveries. As regards the cause of the annihilation of the expedition of four causes, which could bring this sad fate about, namely floods, hostility of the Natives, discord in the party or want of water; the last mentioned would have an overwhelming probability for it. Leichhardt was a Gold-Medallist of the RGS. of London and of the Paris geographic Society. His mapping during the first expedition was extensive as his discovery of pastural country was vast! not to speak of no end of watercourses and ranges, all now studded with stations and other settlements. It is almost a stigma to Australia, not withstanding some heroic efforts made, that we could not yet fix the extent of his last and doubtless also brilliant achievements, and that weould18 neither yet build a tomb over his and his comrades remains! Indeed it has taken less time to trace even the fates of La Perouse and of Franklin19 under infinitely greater doubts and difficulties to contend with than have beset for the 45 years now lapsed already, since the Prussian Geographer disappeared for solving the mysteries of his lamentable and cruel fate!20
Please cite as “FVM-93-09-25,” 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 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/93-09-25