From your past career we may all safely indulge
in sanguine anticipations as to your future success. That Providence may
guide you in your wanderings and crown your future labours with new
laurels is the ardent wish of all on whose behalf I now address you. Let
me, however, beg that you will guard, against any unnecessary exposure to
risk, that life in the preservation of which we all feel so deep a
concern. With the assurance of the gratitude, esteem, and admiration of
my brother colonists, permit me now to present you with 854 pounds, being
the proportion of the public subscription awarded to you.
Dr. LEICHHARDT (who was evidently deeply affected) said: Mr. Chairman and
Gentlemen, I thank you for the munificent gift with which you have
honoured me - I thank you for the congratulations for the past - for your
kind wishes for my approaching expedition. [Note. 1] I feel the more the
weight of your generous liberality, as I am conscious how much your
kindness has overvalued my deserts; but I shall try to render myself
worthy of it; and I hope that the Almighty, who has so mercifully taken
care of me on my former expedition, will grant me skill and strength to
continue my explorations, and will render them equally successful and
beneficial to this colony. May his blessings attend the generous people
who have shown, by the honours they have done me, how great an interest
they take in the advancement of discovery.
Mr. C. COWPER then moved a vote of thanks to the Committee and their
Secretary, which was acknowledged by Mr. R. GRAHAM, when the business of
the meeting closed.
Those who appreciate the value of Dr. Leichhardt's scientific exploration
of the country from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, and who feel any
interest in his record of the difficulties of his enterprise, will be
glad to learn that the Royal Geographical Society of London has recently
awarded him the Queen's Gold Medal, in acknowledgment of his services;
and that the Royal Geographical Society of Paris has likewise adjudged
him its Gold Medal of this year.
[Note 1. The object of the new Expedition here alluded to, Is to explore
the Interior of Australia, to discover the extent of Sturt's Desert and
the character of the Western and North-Western Coast, and to observe the
gradual change in vegetation and animal life from one side of the
Continent to the other.
Dr. Leichhardt does not expect to be able to accomplish this overland
journey to Swan River, in less than two years and a half. According to a
letter written by him on the eve of his departure (Dec. 6, 1846); his
party consisted of six whites, and two blacks; he had purchased thirteen
mules, twelve horses, and two hundred and seventy goats; and bad received
forty oxen, three mules, and two horses, as presents. He then purposed to
travel over his old route, as far as Peak Range, and then to shape his
course westwards; but thought it not impossible, as his course depends on
water, that be should be obliged to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria, and
then to follow up some river to its source. - Ed.]
The End
End of Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, by Ludwig Leichhardt
