Appendix. Ixvii 



E., the huge but simple L being evidently intended as a conspicuous 

 lasting mark by the unfortunate traveller to signify the spot where 

 he intended to leave the line of Cooper's Creek, the letter measuring 

 fully eighteen inches in length.* 



From the discovery of this L, the only one which at the time 

 extended our knowledge of Leichhardt's movements, the inference 

 has been drawn that the accounts given by the natives of the 

 destruction of Leichhardt beyond the Maranoa were unreliable or 

 truthless. 



It would have been a source of deep gratification to the committee, 

 if in endeavouring to penetrate this chaos of conflicting evidence they 

 could give their concurrence to this inference. 



But on reflecting how vague all information in this sad event of 

 Leichhardt's death has proved throughout, as far as the indication 

 of the spot is concerned, we think that the discrepancies of some of 

 the statements may be reconciled by the vagueness characteristic of 

 the ideas of the savages on distances, numbers, and time • hence we 

 had arrived at the conclusion, that the various accounts given to Mr. 

 Hely by the natives, as far as they admitted generally the annihila- 

 tion of Leichhardt's party, were thereby not invalidated ; and we 

 even conceived that the locality referred to by those natives on whose 

 statement Mr. Hely could place most dependence, is still quite with- 

 in the reach of the spot where Mr. Gregory discovered the huge L. 

 In this conclusion the committee has subsequently been strengthened 

 by the testimony kindly proffered by Mr. Gideon Lang, who, after a 

 lengthened conversation with several natives in 1851, calculated the 

 distance of the spot where the tragical occurrence took place still to 

 be ten of Ms days journey from the head of the Maranoa. 



We are not surprised at Mr. Gregory having found no further in- 

 dications of Leichhardt's presence on the spot ; that gentleman 

 visited the locality ten years after the last explorers, and found the 

 banks of Cooper's Creek for nearly a mile on either side bearing the 

 vestiges of one of those tremendous inundations, the torrent of 

 which would probably carry away any relics of a river-camp, or bury 

 them in the subsiding debris. 



No additional disclosures concerning Leichhardt were obtained 

 until the year 1861, when the services of Mr. Frederick Walker were 

 secured by the Exploration Committee of this Society, to conduct 

 one of the expeditions in search of Mr. Burke and his companions. 



On his way to the Gulf of Carpentaria, diverging to Cooper's 

 Creek, he found seven miles below the Leichhardtian camp dis- 

 covered by Gregory, another tree bearing a smaller L, testifying 

 Leichhardt's presence. t 



* Vide appended extracts of Gregory's journal printed by order of the 

 Legislative Council of New South Wales. 

 t Vide extracts from his journal appended. 



E 2 



