These two explorers
were rivals, and both, it seems, claimed to have been first in that
field.
Next on the list of explorers comes Ludwig Leichhardt, a surgeon, a
botanist, and an eager seeker after fame in the Australian field of
discovery, and whose memory all must revere. He successfully conducted
an expedition from Moreton Bay to the Port Essington of King--on the
northern coast--by which he made known the geographical features of a
great part of what is now Queensland, the capital being Brisbane at
Moreton Bay. A settlement had been established at Port Essington by
the Government of New South Wales, to which colony the whole territory
then belonged. At this settlement, as being the only point of relief
after eighteen months of travel, Leichhardt and his exhausted party
arrived. The settlement was a military and penal one, but was
ultimately abandoned. It is now a cattle station in the northern
territory division of South Australia, and belongs to some gentlemen
in Adelaide.
Of Leichhardt's sad fate in the interior of Australia no tidings have
ever been heard. On this fatal journey, which occurred in 1848, he
undertook the too gigantic task of crossing Australia from east to
west, that is to say, from Moreton Bay to Swan River.
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