Appendix. lxv 



Mr. Hely failed to ascertain with absolute certainty the fate of the 

 missing explorers, and it is only to be regretted that this gentlemen's 

 researches were not followed up immediately after his return, before 

 the vestiges of the lost party faded away. 



Mr. Hely reported, under date 22nd July, 1852, from Surat the 

 results of his mission.* 



The evidence thus gained left unfortunately hardly any doubt 

 that the poor explorers had all lost their lives by a brutal and 

 treacherous attack of the natives, although a series of circumstances, 

 which are best learnt frbm Mr. Hely's report, prevented that gentle- 

 man from reaching the locality where the death-scene took place, 

 and although he found the accounts of the blacks as regards the 

 precise spot of the catastrophe to be greatly at variance. It is easily 

 understood why the natives, whilst without hesitation they generally 

 admitted the destruction of the party, and brought to bear an un- 

 deniable amount of corroborative and circumstantial evidence on the 

 facts, were naturally reluctant to lead the friends of the fallen men 

 to a place where the contemplation of the spot of horror, and of the 

 relics of the unfortunate victims, might so easily arouse in the white 

 men feelings of the most intense indignation and of fervent ven- 

 geance. Hence Mr. Hely was readily enabled to find two of Dr. 

 Leichhardt's camps at the sources of the Warrego and Nive, bearing 

 as marks XVA . in the lower portion of a capital L, but was con- 

 stantly deceived by the blacks in their statements about the spot of 

 the massacre. Had the guides acted otherwise, they would indeed 

 have exposed themselves, and this without protection, to the retalia- 

 tion of those tribes whom they had, may it be with ever so much 

 justice, accused ; thus the natives, ever eager to gain rewards from 

 the travelling party, conducted it to Sir Thomas Mitchell's depot, 

 and other spots, and finally vanished secretly. The inscription on 

 each of the two Leichhardtian camps found by Mr. Hely has never 

 yet been satisfactorily deciphered, and although, by the subsequent 

 discovery of two other trees during Gregory's and Walker's expedi- 

 tions, indicating camps of Leichhardt about 80 and 87 miles further 

 to the north-west, the interpretation of these marks became of less 

 importance, and although no interpretation is likely to shed any 

 light on his fate, there is still attached a melancholy interest to 

 these, as some of the very last signs we have of his movements. 

 We wish, however, to observe that the Rev. W. B. Clarke, the 

 venerable and ever active geologist of New South Wales, has sought 

 to elucidate these figures as indicative of Kennedy's camp, in a 

 letter (published in the Sydney Morning Herald of August, 1858), 

 in which he with the warmth of personal friendship for Leichhardt, 

 cherishes the hope that evidences so contradictory as those hitherto 

 obtained leave still ample room for the opinion of Leichhardt's not 



* Vide papers of the Legislative Council of New South Wales. 



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