lxiv Appendix. 



traces of Leichhardt, and examined the Maranoa for seventy miles 

 on both sides, without obtaining any further clue beyond some infor- 

 mation from the natives, which corroborated circumstantially the 

 first accounts received, and placed the death-scene further to the 

 westward. The two stockmen then determined to return, and Mr. Lang 

 was reluctantly obliged to relinquish his search, being, like Walker, 

 greatly reduced in strength by extreme hardships undergone 

 immediately before they set out on this journey, although they 

 calculated to be able to reach the place of Leichhardt's supposed fall 

 in ten days from the Maranoa. 



Their provisions also at the time were exhausted. If the same 

 high-minded energy evinced spontaneously on this occasion by Mr. 

 Gideon Lang, had inspired others to imitate his example, the fate 

 of one of the most glorious explorers of Australia would doubtless 

 long since have been ascertained. - 



Mr. Lang, who verbally narrated these recorded facts to Dr. 

 Mueller, felt at the time, and is still satisfied that Leichhardt and 

 his companions perished under the circumstances related by the 

 natives ; and when it is remembered that Leichhardt started with 

 seven horses, twenty mules, and fifty oxen, as animals of burden, 

 the travelling pace of which would necessitate his stages to be so 

 short as to permit the swift natives to collect around him ; that long 

 subsequently Mr. Walker found the natives on the Patrick River in 

 possession of axes ; that Mr. Isaacs, a former companion of Leich- 

 hardt, and many others, were informed of that unfortunate traveller's 

 intention to bend his course to the Alice ; and when, moreover, we 

 consider the atrocious disposition of the natives of the whole dis- 

 trict about Mount Abundance, and west of it, where many Euro- 

 peans were killed by them, and even many stations were abandoned 

 at the time as untenable, we must admit that Mr. Lang was fully 

 justified in arriving at the conclusions he drew from the information 

 originally and soon afterwards obtained by him from the natives. 



The fact of the blacks pointing rather to the west than north-west 

 as the locality in which the encounter took place, does not, in our 

 opinion, much invalidate the evidence, because the hunting-ground 

 of their western neighbours would likely extend through several 

 degrees of latitude, and they would only perhaps be generally aware 

 of the travellers being destroyed in the territory of the western 

 tribes. 



The Government of New South Wales having obtained, through 

 Mr. Lang and through other sources, this information of the pro- 

 bable fate of Dr. Leichhardt, promptly despatched a party, under the 

 command of Mr. Hovendon Hely, to investigate more closely these 

 sad circumstances. This inquiry was instituted by Mr. Hely un- 

 doubtedly with a deep appreciation of the duty devolving on him. at 

 the occasion ; and although the results derived from his journey 

 materially strengthed the evidence obtained through Mr. Lang, 



