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Updated: June 17, 2025
The eighth chapter of Dr Leichhardt's journal will be esteemed by the general reader the most interesting in the book, for in it he deviates somewhat from his usual track, is more sparing than his wont of botanical and geographical details, and gives a few brief but interesting particulars of the daily life and habits of his party.
Hume was interviewed by some gentlemen who were interested in the solution of Leichhardt's fate, and he now added a little additional matter: that on a subsequent visit he found that Classen, rendered restless by the near neighbourhood of the whites, had made an effort to reach them and died in the attempt.
On the 1st of June, the party was reunited, and the leader prepared for a fresh excursion. Before Kennedy left the first depot, at which, it will be remembered, he was to remain six weeks, he received dispatches from Commissioner Mitchell to Sir Thomas, by which that gentleman learnt of the success of Leichhardt's expedition.
Here he found a venerable old white man, who turned out to be Classen Leichhardt's brother-in-law and from him Hume learnt that the death of the leader and most of his party happened through a mutiny in the camp, Leichhardt being murdered, and the party then becoming disorganised and lost.
All these circumstances, combined with the very slender means which had enabled the young and enthusiastic explorer to succeed, threw around Leichhardt's reputation a glamour, which, fortunately for his reputation, the mystery surrounding the total and absolute disappearance of himself and party, in 1848, has deepened, and kept alive until this day.
For some inexplicable reason, this man, whose name was Classen or Klausen, has always been selected as the hero of the many tales that have been brought in of a solitary survivor of the party living in captivity with the natives; probably, because his was the only name besides Leichhardt's generally known and remembered.
On this preliminary journey he followed the presumed Lynd down for nearly one hundred and eighty miles, until he was convinced that there was an error, and that, whatever river it was, it certainly was not Leichhardt's, as neither in appearance, direction, nor position did it coincide with that explorer's description.
A flattering letter from the Colonial Secretary at Sydney, announcing the government grant, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London, and another from that of Paris, have further rewarded Dr Leichhardt's meritorious labours. Unflinching in pursuit of science, he again set forth, in December 1845, on an overland journey to Swan River, expected to occupy two years and a half.
Up to this time, Frank Jardine had supposed the stream they were on to be the Mitchell, but finding its course so little agreeing with Leichhardt's description of it, below the junction of the Lynd, which is there said to run N.W., he was inclined to the conclusion that they had not yet reached that river. Mr.
Although expressing his willingness to produce the relics on receiving the promise of an adequate reward, he never did so, and having attained a temporary notoriety, returned to his former obscurity. This may be said to end the rumours of the discovery of Leichhardt's memorials, They served no good end in any way. John Forrest, of Western Australia, made his first important journey in 1869.
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