from Darling Downs, they numbered seven
white men and two natives, with 270 goats, 180 sheep, 40 bullocks, 15
horses, and 13 mules. There were besides an ample outfit and provisions
calculated to last the explorers on a two years' journey; for it was
estimated that the expedition would be absent from civilisation for that
time.

Instead of setting out westwards from the initial point in a direction
where Leichhardt could reasonably expect fair travelling country for some
distance, he proceeded along his old track north to the Mackenzie and
Isaacs Rivers. What induced him to adopt this course is uncertain. He
explained to one of his party that it was to verify some former
observations; or he may have had some dim notion that by keeping to the
tropical line he would gain some climatic assistance. Whatever the cause,
the result was disastrous. The wet season and monsoonal rains caught the
party amongst the sickly acacia scrubs of that region; and hemmed in by
mud and bog they lost their stock, consumed their provisions, and made no
progress. Henceforth the narrative is one of semi-starvation, varied by
gorging on the days when a beast was killed; and wrangles and quarrels,
in which the leader appeared in no amiable light. Medicine had been
omitted from the stores, and all the covering they had from the
torrential rains was provided by two miserable calico tents. The 6th day
of July found them back on Chauvel's station on the Condamine; a sad
contrast to the party which had aspired to cross the continent.

[Illustration. John Frederick Mann. Born 1819, died September 7th, 1907,
at Sydney. The last survivor of a Leichhardt expedition.]

The onus of this wretched failure Leichhardt tried to cast upon his
companions, upon whom he made many unjust aspersions. J.F. Mann, late of
the Survey Department of New South Wales, was one of the expedition, and
the last surviving member of any expedition connected with Leichhardt. He
wrote a booklet in which he vigorously defends his comrades and himself
against the unworthy slurs cast at them by Leichhardt. Amongst his papers
is a rough sketch from life of Leichhardt in bush costume.

On reaching the Condamine, Leichhardt was put into possession of the news
of Mitchell's return and of the discovery of the Barcoo. Being anxious to
examine the country lying between the upper Condamine and Mitchell's
latest track, he, in company with two or three of his late companions,
left Cecil Plains