Dr. Leichhardt

Debunked

Romantic Discovery of an Old Diary

fIIHE name of Ludwig Leichhardt is X cherished tenderly in the annals of Australian exploration. He led one successful expedition, in 1844-5, from South Queensland to the Northern Terri tory; a couple of others which were not successful; and in 1848 he disappeared into the unknown interior, and never was seen again.

On his first expedition, he was accom panied by John Gilbert, a gifted or nithologist. Gilbert was killed by blacks in the Carpentaria region, and his care fully kept diary was carried on by Leich hardt. The latter did not use the diary— did not even read it, else he would have destroyed it.

Nearly one hundred years later, Alec.

H. Chisholm, an Australian journalist and author and a famous naturalist, began a search for records concerning the almost unknown and half - legendary Gilbert; and following obscure clues, by a combination of luck and persistence, in a little Hampshire village he recovered Gilbert’s diary, from a place where it had lain unnoticed for a very long time. And what a treasure-trove it proved to be!

With this diary as a basis, Mr. Chis holm re-tells the fascinating story of the Leichhardt explorations. John Gilbert, speaking from an unknown and long forgotten grave in Northern Australia, throws a new and unpleasant light upon the character and performances of the leader. He was a young German, who apparently had lived always by sponging upon English friends whom he had met at college. He was shipped by an English family to Australia, where he continued sponging; he called himself “Doctor”, but he had never taken a degree; he was weak, bombastic and incapable of sound planning; and to entrust men to his leadership, in unknown Australia, was to condemn them to death.

Mr. Chisholm has collected much in dependent evidence to corroborate Gil bert’s debunking of Leichhardt, and the resulting book is a combination of human document, description of unknown Aus tralia, analysis of the strange Leichhardt character, and Australian bird lore. I lingered pleasurably over the reading of it, in preference to my usual bed-time

thriller.-

STRANGE NEW WORLD, by A. H. Chisholm.

Published by Angus & Robertson, Sydney. 12/6.