About Sixty Horses And Sixteen Camels Were Obtained For This Attempt.

The less said about this splendid but ill-starred effort the better. Indignation is a mild term to apply to our feelings towards the man who caused the ruin of so generous an undertaking.

Everything that its promoters could do to ensure its success they did, and it deserved a better fate, for a brilliant issue might have been obtained, if not by the discovery of the lost explorers, at least by a geographical result, as the whole of the western half of Australia lay unexplored before it. The work, trouble, anxiety, and expense that Baron von Mueller went through to start this expedition none but the initiated can ever know. It was ruined before it even entered the field of its labours, for, like Burke's and Wills's expedition, it was unfortunately placed under the command of the wrong man. The collapse of the expedition occurred in this wise. A certain doctor was appointed surgeon and second in command, the party consisting of about ten men, including two Afghans with the camels, and one young black boy. Their encampment was now at a water-hole in the Paroo, where Curlewis and McCulloch had been killed, in New South Wales. The previous year McIntyre had visited a water-hole in the Cooper some seventy-four or seventy-five miles from his camp on the Paroo, and now ordered the whole of his heavily-laden beasts and all the men to start for the distant spot. The few appliances they had for carrying water soon became emptied. About the middle of the third day, upon arrival at the wished-for relief, to their horror and surprise they found the water-hole was dry - by no means an unusual thing in Australian travel. The horses were already nearly dead; McIntyre, without attempting to search either up or down the channel of the watercourse, immediately ordered a retreat to the last water in the Paroo. After proceeding a few miles he left the horses and white men, seven in number, and went on ahead with the camels, the Afghans and the black boy, saying he would return with water for the others as soon as he could. His brother was one of the party left behind. Almost as soon as McIntyre's back was turned, the doctor said to the men something to the effect that they were abandoned to die of thirst, there not being a drop of water remaining, and that he knew in which packs the medical brandy was stowed, certain bags being marked to indicate them. He then added, "Boys, we must help ourselves! the Leichhardt Search Expedition is a failure; follow me, and I'll get you something to drink." Taking a knife, he ripped open the marked bags while still on the choking horses' backs, and extracted the only six bottles there were. One white man named Barnes, to whom all honour, refused to touch the brandy, the others poured the boiling alcohol down their parched and burning throats, and a wild scene of frenzy, as described by Barnes, ensued. In the meanwhile the unfortunate packhorses wandered away, loaded as they were, and died in thirst and agony, weighed down by their unremoved packs, none of which were ever recovered. Thus all the food supply and nearly all the carrying power of the expedition was lost; the only wonder was that none of these wretches actually died at the spot, although I heard some of them died soon after. The return of McIntyre and the camels loaded with water saved their lives at the time; but what was his chagrin and surprise to find the party just where he had left them, nearly dead, most of them delirious, with all the horses gone, when he had expected to meet them so much nearer the Paroo. In consequence of the state these men or animals were in, they had to be carried on the camels, and it was impossible to go in search of the horses; thus all was lost. This event crushed the expedition. Mcintyre obtained a few more horses, pushed across to the Flinders again, became attacked with fever, and died. Thus the "Ladies' Leichhardt Search Expedition" entirely fell through. The camels were subsequently claimed by McIntyre's brother for the cost of grazing them, he having been carried by them to Carpentaria, where he selected an excellent pastoral property, became rich, and died. It was the same doctor that got into trouble with the Queensland Government concerning the kidnapping of some islanders in the South Seas, and narrowly escaped severe, if not capital punishment.

In 1866, Mr. Cowle conducted an expedition from Roebourne, near Nicol Bay, on the West Coast, for four or five hundred miles to the Fitzroy River, discovered by Wickham, at the bottom of King's Sound.

In 1869, a report having spread in Western Australia of the massacre of some white people by the natives somewhere to the eastwards of Champion Bay, on the west coast, the rumour was supposed to relate to Leichhardt and his party; and upon the representations of Baron von Mueller to the West Australian Government, a young surveyor named John Forrest was despatched to investigate the truth of the story. This expedition penetrated some distance to the eastwards, but could discover no traces of the lost, or indeed anything appertaining to any travellers whatever.

In 1869-70, John Forrest, accompanied by his brother Alexander, was again equipped by the West Australian Government for an exploration eastwards, with the object of endeavouring to reach the South Australian settlements by a new route inland. Forrest, however, followed Eyre's track of 1840-1, along the shores of the Great Australian Bight, and may be said to have made no exploration at all, as he did not on any occasion penetrate inland more than about thirty miles from the coast. At an old encampment Forrest found the skull of one of Eyre's horses, which had been lying there for thirty years. This trophy he brought with him to Adelaide.

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