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.

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