CHAPTER XXVI 



LEICHHARDT'S OVERLAND EXPEDITION FROM BRISBANE 

 TO PORT ESSINGTON, 1844-5 



BRISBANE TO THE LYND RIVER 



LEICHHARDT'S PREVIOUS HISTORY. THE OVERLAND EXPEDITION. START FROM 

 BRISBANE. PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT. MOBILISE AT JIMBOUR. ITINERARY 

 FROM JIMBOUR TO THE HEAD OF THE LYND. 



FOR a brief hour, as the southern cross appears to a watcher 

 in the north, DR. LUDWIG LEICHHARDT, the first land 

 explorer to reach the Cape York Peninsula from the south, 

 rises above our horizon. 



Leichhardt was born in Trebatch, Liibben, Prussia, in 1813. 

 Owing to the accidental omission of his name from the military 

 rolls, he found himself, on arriving at the age of manhood, free to 

 indulge the passion for travel which had been born with him. He 

 reached Sydney in 1842, and as soon as he had attained sufficient 

 prominence to be noticed, was posted in his native country as a 

 deserter. At a later date, in recognition of his services to science, 

 the King of Prussia was graciously pleased to remove the stigma 

 from his name by granting him a free pardon. He might prove 

 a useful instrument for peaceful penetration. 



For a little over two years, Leichhardt occupied himself in 

 BOTANICAL AND GEOLOGICAL TRAVELS, in the course of which he 

 went as far north as Moreton Bay (Brisbane). 



Apart from the mysterious circumstances surrounding his 

 death, Leichhardt's fame rests on his successful TRAVERSE OF THE 

 AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, the 

 early settlement in Coburg Peninsula, in the north of Arnheim 

 Land, which has since been superseded by Port Darwin. 



LEICHHARDT LEFT SYDNEY on iyb August, 1844, accompanied 

 by JAMES CALVERT, JOHN ROPER, JOHN MURPHY (aged 16), 

 WILLIAM PHILLIPS (a " prisoner of the Crown ") and " HARRY 

 BROWN," an aboriginal of the Newcastle tribe. 



In Brisbane, there were added to the party, PEMBERTON 

 HODGSON, a botanist ; JOHN GILBERT, who had been collecting 

 for Gould, the Naturalist ; CALEB, an American negro ; and 

 CHARLEY, an aboriginal from Bathurst. 



The expedition was mobilised at JIMBOUR, on the Darling 

 Downs, and finally left that station on 1st October, 1844. 



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