Moreton Bay District, 27 August 1843

My dearest mother,

Your wandering son has still not yet found a place for settling down, but roams across forests and plains, mountains and valleys, sleeping next to a warm fire beneath the clear sky wrapped in his woolen blanket one day, in the hut of a hospitable settler the next—indeed occasionally sharing the blanket of a transported convict, whose present hospitality makes me forget his past sins. After I had lived in Moreton Bay for a while and investigated the vegetation that covers the shores of the rivers and streams there, I took two horses—my family has by now been enlarged by a young mare—to a lesser-known region, customarily known as the Bunya Bunya district. You see, there’s a huge tree [with this name] that grows among the bushes that cover the ridges of the mountains; it is much like the fir tree of Germany and has large cones which contain harbor floury, sweet kernels between their scales and are highly valued by the blacks. According to the natives, this tree yields a harvest every 3 years and on this occasion clans arrive from near and far to gorge themselves on the nourishing Bunya kernels for approximately 3 months. At that time the men fight it out here, while the women go out to gather the fruits, and many a black man does not return to his home alive. His relatives, meanwhile, consume their slain brother, clean his bones—his thighs, arms, and skull—which the women then carry with them in small nets. Some tribes hold the curious belief that the power of the slain man passes on to whomever eats him and renders the latter twice as powerful. There is not a trace of doubt that this consumption of human flesh occurs; men, such as the missionaries who have spent long years living among the savages, have witnessed it. There is no hope of converting the present generation to Christianity and this generation will most likely be the last one, since the blacks are rapidly dying out wherever they come into contact with whites.

Then again, these black children of the bush are rather interesting creatures in many respects. They are certainly not lacking in intelligence. They seized the slightest advantages offered them by nature, and in terms of subsistence practices their discoveries are as abundant as our own, having learned to turn wheat and rye into bread, raise vegetables, catch fish, shoot game, rob bees of their honey, and use certain plants as medicinal remedies. — At the same time, they are superstitious, believe in ghosts, have dark conceptions about certain deities and some of these conceptions are rather peculiar. Indeed, it appears that their nightly dances, during which they paint stripes of white clay on themselves, are often performed for purposes of worshipping their deities or appeasing their anger. — They treat their women akin to slaves and pack animals and the poor creatures have to search out roots for their indolent men, have to carry the children, and the nets in which they transport their belongings. Every clan controls a certain district. They roam it continually to find sufficient food. At times the whole clan is gathered together, at other times they are scattered into groups of 2, 3, or 4. They construct their huts, or humpies, as they are called here, out of sticks and tree bark, since the barks of many trees can be stripped easily. Along the coast the men are commonly larger, here they are smaller, yet stocky and well-nourished. Almost every clan has its own language; frequently even among families there are a lot of varying words; yet even unacquainted clans manage to communicate with one another easily. — In general, these people are treacherous and one has to be cautious around them, even if they claim to be friendly. In Wide Bay they murdered 5 shepherds just before my arrival and here on Mr. Archer’s station they attempted to skewer a shepherd with their spears, yet fortunately he only sustained a superficial shoulder wound. — It is natural that the whites then seek revenge and that many a black loses his life. An inadequate police force seems to be the main problem. It is very difficult to convey an accurate picture of this disparity to you. To me, the

government appears to act erroneously in so many instances that it would be hard to determine what the primary mistake actually is. For the most part the whites employed at the various stations are transported convicts, almost without exception or with few exceptions unmarried, devoid of any moral principles or feelings. These men often engage in relations with the black women, who naturally stick close to the huts where they find good, ample food whereas they quite often suffer hunger in the bush. The black men, although not that strict with their women if only they receive tobacco and food, do not wish to lose their women completely and so their mood begins to sour, they utter threats, and finally seek revenge. They do this by either killing cattle or sheep, or by attacking white men outright whenever they can get them in their control. You may ask why the owners of the herds of cattle and sheep employ the services of such bad, amoral persons? The answer is: on the one hand the free settlers do not have enough experience to make themselves useful, on the other hand they lack the courage to migrate hundreds of miles inland, either alone or with wife and child, to make a living as a shepherd or cowherd there. Transported convicts, who are called “old hands” here, were forced to do so, lived in the same place for long periods of time, and thereby acquired a lot of experience. It is incredible what all such a man knows how to do. He is shepherd, cowboy, builder, sawyer, woodcutter, carpenter, blacksmith; he is knowledgeable about illnesses afflicting horses and sheep, knows how to bake bread, how to cook, how to sew —in short, all matters that life in the bush requires. At the same time he possesses extraordinary stamina, can march long distances and ride for hundreds of miles at a time. — In this regard life in the bush is highly educational; a man comes to appreciate his own strength and I have gathered a lot of experience in

this respect, since I am at present quite a decent bushman.

Since my means for travel are gradually diminishing, I will soon have to seriously consider steady employment, because I do not want to leave Australia before I have traveled all across it. I received several proposals, though I have not yet come to a decision. I have seen almost the entire northern part of the colony and hope to visit the southern part next year. From Moreton Bay I will soon return to New England, the Hunter and Sydney, where I hope to arrive within 3 months; my headway is all but painstaking because my travels progress so slowly, and because I have so much to see and to seek. I saw German missionaries at Moreton Bay, some of whom come from Berlin and Pomerania. I almost believed myself at home again when I partook in their German worship service. There are 7 families, 2 ministers, and by now the whole congregation calls 22 small children their own, who are possibly better behaved than any other children in the colony. They were supported by the government in the past; at present they make a living by gardening until their further fate has been decided. They were useful insofar as they treated the blacks with humanity and kindness and thus rendered them friendly toward the settlers. Yet as concerns education and Christianity they were unfortunately unable to accomplish much. Catholic missionaries arrived here a few months ago. I do not know whether the formal worship service of the Catholics will be better suited to keep the blacks in one place and to direct their attention to matters of the mind and of God, away from mere physical needs. There would be some hope if, as a matter of routine, the children would be taken away from their clan and educated far away. Yet the English government regards this as an infringement on the rights of British subjects, which it considers the savages to be—and thusly this hope for future success is dwindling as well. —

I hope that you have received my letters; I only have one of yours and I am asking you to write to me by way of William. Farewell, all of you, and please keep me in your hearts and minds, especially you, my dear mother,

Most affectionately, your loving son,
Ludwig Leichhardt

Darling Downs, 22 February 1848

My dearest brother-in-law,

Four months have passed since I informed you about my return from Peak Range. I have used this time to make preparations for a new expedition, and in a few days will be once more ready to penetrate Australia’s interior, and, if God grants me the strength, to cross the entire continent. I have made an effort to find good, valiant men and believe that Classen will be well-suited to my endeavor, although a land expedition differs significantly from even the most trying of sea voyages. Another friend, Mr. Hentig, has also joined me. I have hired two workmen and will take two blacks along, one of whom accompanied me on my last journey. The entire company is thus comprised of 7 men and I hope that this number will prove entirely sufficient. At present I am in possession of 20 mules, 7 horses, and 50 bullocks, 20 of which were a gift from Mr. Robinson and 30 of which were gifted to me by the government. I told you that a Mr. Kennedy had been sent by the government to follow the Victoria River to its mouth, which Sir Thomas Mitchell had seen but not completely explored on his expedition. Mr. Kennedy has returned and has determined that the river turns southward and loses itself in Sturt’s desert, and that it is probably identical with “Coopers Creek,” which Captain Sturt mentions in his expedition [account]. I am therefore once again alone in the field and think that I can solve a great number of interesting questions if I only succeed in bypassing the northern tip of the desert.

I left Sydney in December, after I had made all my purchases. A trip to the Hunter River, where I went to visit several friends, delayed me by about a week. I then traveled to Captain King in Port Stephens in order to repeat a few earlier observations using my thermometer to determine the elevation above sea level; after that I bought 6 fresh mules and traveled through New England, where I picked up 20 bullocks, to my present location, the hospitable abode of Mr. Fr. Bracker, a master sheep farmer from Mecklenburg. I had scarcely gotten under shelter when the heavy rains commenced that are characteristic in this part of the colony from the end of January and through February. The colony had been suffering immensely from drought, and the sudden cold showers,

which rained down on New England’s freshly shorn flocks of sheep, standing utterly exposed to the night air, caused more damage than even the drought had. 100,000 sheep are said to have perished across the colony while the rains lasted. I myself witnessed the death of 800 in one night, when an entire flock of 1000 head sought shelter in stables and houses and feared neither the threats of people nor the dogs. As soon as the rain ended, and during the rains as well, all of nature, which had appeared almost dead to our eyes, tired of the monotonous yellow of withered vegetation, came to life, and the loveliest, sunny green enveloped the open forests and treeless pasture lands. This switch from an almost complete cessation of plant growth, from a desolate paralysis of nature, to the most luscious vegetation and an omnipresent, teeming world of insects reminds the eyewitness of Humboldt’s description of savannahs at the beginning of the rainy season.

As soon as the heaviest rains had passed and streams and rivers had become passable again I began to consolidate all of my possessions, which had been scattered almost across the entire Darling Downs, at Mr. Bracker’s in Rosenthal. I also had to look for such people as I wanted to take along with me. This is how I have spent my time for the last four weeks—almost constantly in the saddle and frequently dead tired. My provisions are likely to arrive here tomorrow or the day after, and this would allow me to set out next Monday, 28 February. I have had the pleasure to learn that the geographical society in London has awarded me one of their medals and that the geographical society in Paris has bestowed a similar honor upon me. I am of course delighted that such astute men deem me worthy of such an honor, yet I have never striven for honor but rather worked on behalf of science and science alone, and will continue to do so even if not one person in the world were to pay any attention to me. I am afraid to lose God’s blessing should I let my vanity take over and should the sincere, calm, painstaking quest for scientific knowledge become mixed up with ambitious striving for fame and recognition.

Mr. Durando of Paris writes that he has successfully received the scanty remains of my botanical collection and that Mr. Decaisne is

busy examining it. Even if my dried plants should not be suitable for determining new species, they should nevertheless prove interesting and useful for the botanical geography of New Holland. I have been very unfortunate with regard to my seeds, since none of the local institutions are suitable for growing and raising tropical plants. You might perhaps wonder why I did not send these collections to one of our German museums? The answer is that I conducted my studies of natural history primarily in English and French museums, and that I did not cultivate friendly relations with any of my compatriots during my youth, which would have obliged me to consider my friends first. Durando was a botanist and a very dear friend of mine. His circumstances were dire; I wanted to provide him with an opportunity to distinguish himself should my collection actually be of some value. This friendly tie to Durando compelled me to send the collection to him instead of sending it to a famous English or German botanist. Durando, however, has neither time nor confidence enough to undertake this project and has therefore given the collection to Mr. Descaisne [sic], who was always quite cordial and accommodating in his behavior toward me.

It was also quite a happy coincidence that I got to see my journal and my maps before departing. The maps are very nice and I am deeply indebted to Mr. Arrowsmith for transforming my rough sketches so beautifully. I will let others pass judgment on my book; it is a simple tale about our expedition and an equally simple description of the areas and things that I saw. If only the traveler is truthful, the scholar at home will thank him. He can never render a minor natural environment impressive and cannot describe the moderate mountain ranges of Australia as though they were the monumental ranges of America. I did not write intending to evoke maximum effect, and hardly thought it worth my while to employ the glowing language of a poetic huntsman to describe hunting kangaroos or emus. The public appears favorably inclined toward the book. At least it has been favorably reviewed in the papers. I would very much like to correct several very unfortunate typographical errors, and should Franciska truly intend to translate it, she would do well to contact Mr. Boone in London, to whom I intend to send

a list of these errors. —

The governor of the colony, Sir Charles FitzRoy, has always been favorably inclined toward my endeavor, and made me a present of 30 bullocks without me even requesting them. The unhappy man lost his wife through a most heartbreaking accident. He loves to take the reins of his horses when going out for a drive and it is said that he is very skilled. The family lived in Paramatta, about 3 German miles from Sydney, and the governor used to come to Sydney once a week, which he usually did in a small coach drawn by 4 horses, accompanied by his son and one servant. About 3 months ago, shortly after I had left Sydney, he drove to a wedding, along with his wife and secretary. The horses bolted on him, the coach tipped over, and Lady Mary and the secretary (Lieutenant Masters) sustained such severe injuries that both died the very same day. Lady Mary was very popular and the entire colony was in mourning. He blames himself for causing this tragedy and at present lives a very secluded life.

Although I most certainly feel strong enough to embark on this new, long expedition, I cannot, however, deny that my constitution has been seriously weakened, particularly on my latest expedition, and that I now have much less muscle strength than I did 4 years ago, when I embarked on my first long journey. In particular, I am suffering from heart palpitations, which frequently cause me quite a bit of worry.

I hope that my letter finds you all in the best of health and that my dear, beloved mother will stay with us for quite a long time yet. For if I return from my expedition alive and in good health, I intend to come to Europe for two years and to pay all of you a very long visit.

Faith thou needest, and must dare
Or the gods withhold their hand
Nought but miracle can bear
Man into the wonderland (I should say rather mother land!)

I wish I could take one of my two blacks home with me. He is a most useful and yet docile lad and not at all as wild as the black who came along on my first expedition. He is called Jimmy or Wommai or Kilalli. The other one is less useful. Yet both possess extremely sharp eyesight, which makes them of excellent use to me.

Claßen will probably write to Herrmann. I have so much yet to write that I will scarcely find time to do so myself. Farewell, my dearest brother-in-law and my sister, convey my greetings to dear mother and our entire family,

Most affectionately, your loving brother-in-law and brother
Ludwig Leichhardt