12 Voyage of Ihc Novara. 



heavy storms and showers of ram, to get into tlie flat desert 

 country on the north-west. As, liowever, tlie rain shortly 

 afterwards ceased, the mifortunate travellers not merely ran 

 short of water in prosecuting their dismal journey, but were 

 prevented from returning, as the small quantity precipitated 

 by a mere meteoric phenomenon would be exhausted in a 

 few days, and it is not easy to suppose that such hardy, 

 zealous, and experienced explorers would have failed to 

 extricate themselves, had not their courage and physical 

 powers been broken down and destroyed by privations of 

 the most terrible nature. 



Despite the tragic fate of Leichhardt's expedition and those 

 of other explorers,* new expeditions are continually being 



Western Australia, the venerable Mr. C. Threlkeld, objected, however, to this view 

 that the letter L, of which so much was spoken, had in all probability been made 

 by one of the youthful natives, who when learning to read and write are in the 

 habit of cutting the letters on the trees. We present here the precise passage of the 

 text of a letter of Dr. Threlkeld's to us :— " I send you a spelling-book, that Billy Blue, 

 one of the black boys, used to have, when he was learning to read and write. He 

 and others used to go into the bush, and cut the letters of the alphabet on tlie barks 

 of the trees, and Brown, an aboriginal lad, who loent icith the unfortunate Lcichhardt, 

 used to do the same. I suspect that he cut the celebrated L on the tree about which 

 -there is so much talk at the ^Jresent time." 



* One of the most appalling of these was that undertaken in April, 184"^, by sur- 

 veyor E. B. Kennedy, along the strip of land between Cape York and Rockingham 

 Bay in Northern Australia, whose melancholy fate is described by one of the 

 survivors, Mr. Carron, a botanist, in a not less simple than affecting manner. " When 

 we first started everything went on well, and the most brilliant anticipations were 

 indulged, although there were numerous obstacles to be overcome, and the few na- 

 tives we encountered were invariably hostile. Gradually, however, provisions began 

 to fail ; sickness and loss of strength succeeded, while the prospect of reaching our 

 goal grew less and less. The further north we got, as the hot season was now setting 

 in, the more frequently did we find the forest rivulets dried up, so that we had for 

 days to bear up against an almost maddening thirst. The horses which accompanied 



