lxviii Appendix. 



We fully acquiesce in the sagacious explanation of Mr. Walker, 

 who points to the probability of Leichhardt having been compelled 

 to retrace his steps to the river and descend along it until he could 

 skirt the scrubs, which, to a party so peculiarly fitted out as his in 

 regard to animals of burden, would prove still more impervious than 

 to any other expedition since in the field in that direction. If the 

 vestiges of tracks noticed by Mr. Walker on the Patrick Eiver, about 

 sixty miles north of Leichhardt's last known positions, can in future 

 be connected with any camps in the vicinity, we would have proof 

 of considerable weight that the universal accounts given by the 

 natives of the destruction of the party further south could not be 

 true, unless we admit the great improbability of Leichhardt's having 

 fallen back on Cooper's Creek for water, after an unsuccessful attempt 

 to penetrate northward, or his having retraced his steps for any 

 other reason unknown. 



The supposed tracks of Leichhardt indicated still further north 

 on Mr. Walker's chart, and recorded in his journal, lead seemingly 

 to the tree marked L by Mr. Landsborough (in lat. 22 deg. 45 min. 

 S., near the Thompson Paver*), a point reached by that traveller 

 anterior to his most creditable Carpentaria expedition. 



On the other hand, this would give no clue to the statement of a 

 native woman, who was understood by Mr. Walker to have seen 

 white men W.S.W. of the Barkly River, Burke and Wills' track 

 being distant about two hundred and eighty miles in that direction. 



This closes our inquiry into the more or less tangible evidence of 

 Leichhardt's fate — an inquiry which necessarily was surrounded with 

 difficulties, and which will continue unsatisfactory as long as it mainly 

 rests on the fluctuating traditions of the natives and on positive 

 testimony so faint. 



In furnishing our report, we have not quoted verbally all the 

 statements bearing on the subject, but appended quotations from 

 various documents. We found it hopeless to bring to bear on Leich- 

 hardt's fate, the statements recorded by Mr. M'Kinlay during his 

 skilful and daring expedition,t which informs us of human remains 

 interred at Lake Massacre, and not yet fully identified with those of 

 Gray's of Burke's expedition. We are of course equally unable to 

 bring within the reach of our investigation the record of the famous 

 J. Macdouall Stuart, of having crossed what appeared horse tracks 

 before he reached Tennant's Creek, near Macdouall Piange, in latitude 

 (approx.) 19 deg. 30 min. S., and long. 134 deg. 25 min. E., or the 

 vague tradition of Western Australia natives, according to which, 

 white travellers coming from the east had perished on a lake in the 

 inland wastes of that colony. 



But as long as all such accounts reawaken our thoughts of the 



* Vide Landsborough's journal, p. 90. 

 t Vide his journal, p. 10. 



