Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture Volume 7 Part 1 The Leichhardt diaries Early travels in Australia during 1842-1844 Edited by Thomas A. Darragh and Roderick J. Fensham © Queensland Museum PO Box 3300, South Brisbane 4101, Australia Phone: +61 (0) 7 3840 7555 Fax: +61 (0) 7 3846 1226 Web: qm.qld.gov.au National Library of Australia card number ISSN 1440-4788 NOTE Papers published in this volume and in all previous volumes of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum may be reproduced for scientific research, individual study or other educational purposes. Properly acknowledged quotations may be made but queries regarding the republication of any papers should be addressed to the Editor in Chief. A Guide to Authors is displayed on the Queensland Museum website qm.qld.gov.au A Queensland Government Project 30 June 2013 The Leichhardt diaries. Early travels in Australia during 1842–1844 Diary No 2 28 December - 24 July 1843 (Hunter River - Liverpool Plains - Gwydir Des bords du Tanaïs au sommet du Cédar. - Darling Downs - Moreton Bay) Sur le bronze et le marbre et sur le sein des [Inside the front cover are two newspaper braves cuttings of poetry, The Lost Ship and The Et jusque dans le cœur de ces troupeaux Neglected Wife. Also there are manuscript d’esclaves stanzas of three pieces of poetry. The first Qu’il foulait tremblans sous son char. in German, the second in English from Jacob Faithful by Frederick Maryatt, and the third [On a reef lashed by the plaintive wave in French.] the navigator from afar sees whitening on the shore Die Gestalt, die die erste Liebe geweckt a tomb near the edge, dumped by the Vergisst sich nie billows; Um den grünsten Fleck in der Wüste der time has not yet darkened the narrow Zeit stone Schwebt zögernd sie and beneath the green fabric of the briar From the German poem of an English and of the ivy lady. one can make out … a broken sceptre. [The figure that awakened the first love Here lies – no name! ask it of the Earth. Is never forgotten The name? It is inscribed in bloody Around the greenest spot in the desert of characters Time from the banks of the Don to the summit Lingering it hovers.] of Mount Sinai, on the bronze and the marble, and on the O that hallowed form is ne’er forgot breasts of the brave men, Which first love traced and even on the hearts of those troops of Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot slaves On memories waste he trampled as they trembled beneath his Jacob Faithfull Marryat p. 231. chariot. [This quote from Frederick Marryat, Jacob First two stanzas of Bonaparte by Alphonse Faithful, 1838 edition, Richard Bentley, Lamartine, Nouvelles méditations poétiques. London, p. 231.] Urbain Canal, Paris, 1823, p. 17] Sur un écueil, battu par la vague plaintive Si vous êtes dans la détresse + Le nautonnier de loin voit blanchir sur la O mes amis cachez-le bien; rive Car l’homme est bon et s’intéresse Un tombeau près du bord par les flots à ceux qui n’ont besoin de rien! déposé Le temps n’a pas encore bruni l’étroite [If you are in dire straits, pierre O my friends, hide it well, Et sous le vert tissu de la ronce et du lierre for man is kind and interested On distingue – un sceptre brisé. in those who need nothing! Ici-gît – point de nom! demandez à la Terre M. Hoffman, Quatrain. Almanach des Muses Le nom? Il est inscrit en sanglant caractère 41 (1805), p. 246.] Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 7(1) 2013 | 107 Darragh and Fensham Diary from 28 December 1842 Souvenons nous que du grand architecte [One stanza of poetry in English in L’oeil est fixé sur nos sages travaux! handwriting of W.B. Clarke and with his [Let us remember that the eye of the Great initials WBC. This is a rhymed translation of Architect is fixed on our wise work! the stanza at the top of the page marked by Clarke with a cross.] Part of the third stanza of La Lumière. Couplets maçonniques by P. Emile + Debraux,Chansons nouvelles, tome 3, Roy- If you my friends in trouble be Terry, Paris, 1829, pp. 263-5.] Your trouble always try to hide For man is good and always will To those who nothing need provide. Sweet are the uses of adversity WBC Which like the toad ugly and venomous Wears yet a precious jewel in its head. [William Shakespeare, As you like it, Act 2, scene 1, 12-14] 108 | Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 7(1) 2013 The Leichhardt diaries. Early travels in Australia during 1842–1844 *White gum Gwydir Station* Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 7(1) 2013 | 109 Darragh and Fensham 28 December efflorescence covers the surface of the small I will mention again that last Monday with cracked pieces. The sun shines strongly Mr Glennie I saw a lizard with a crest along against the wall and the smell of sulphuric the whole length of its back. I was not so acid was very noticeable. Where moisture fortunate to catch it. It ran up a low Casuarina and standing puddles are present, magnesia and as I was preparing to knock it down, it and saltpetre appear as efflorescence. I jumped down about 12’ to the ground and thought to distinguish three different salts. quickly fled away. One was bitter, the other sour and attacked the teeth extraordinarily, and the third biting Yesterday I rode to Mr Fereta’s [Ferriter] property to investigate the steep banks of the without taking the edge off the teeth. I don’t Hunter behind his house. I found that they know how far I am mistaken. These salts are corresponded perfectly to those at Singleton. on the surface of a micaceous rich, sandy, However, over the blue and yellow clay I strongly cracked clay in the immediate still saw the loose sandstone, which also vicinity of standing water exposed to the appears on the left of the track to Mr Fereta. rays of the sun. The crystals are by no means so For botany my excursion was not quite numerous. On the left of the track fruitless. At the first quarry on the left of Mr F. has had sandstone quarried. The sandstone bed about 2½ feet thick is the track to Fereta’s I found a small labiate covered by alluvial pebbles and contains with two filaments, with the lower lip very traces of shells (Mytilus). It dips towards developed and trilobate, whilst the upper the north at an angle of 20° and rests on was very small and vertical (as in Teucrium). conglomerate. The filaments were simple with an appendix. The joints in the sandstone at some places Aneilema (with three fertile, and two infertile are covered by a crust of carbonate of lime. filaments, the filaments naked) was in flower. Ferruginous accumulations full of traces A small Ruellia studded with hairs and of shells show that the sandstone contains another similar plant with prostrate stem and shells. hairy throat were found as I descended from The transition of the sandstone and of the the place and met the fence. It was a dry soil. conglomerate becomes much more visible on the opposite northerly mountain where the A kind of mason bee attracted rock also outcrops. my attention by the elaborate manner of its nest building. Three parallel hills trend here from south An exterior oblong case[?] south-east to north north-west and curve a formed from mud surrounded little so that they trend from south-east to an inner case[?] which ended north-west. They end freely in caps in the plains of the Hunter. in a bent funnel. Between both is a horny layer. Usually three After you pass Fereta’s fence and even to four together. The larva is inside it (towards Singleton) there are without feet. various broken[?] micaceous clays with rare impressions of shells (perhaps a Limneaus Under the heap of stones I found a Dasyuris and a Spirifer). Veins of gypsum run through mangii, small, about 1’ long, yellowish the rock horizontally and vertically. A yellow background with circular patches. 110 | Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 7(1) 2013 The Leichhardt diaries. Early travels in Australia during 1842–1844 29 December traveller, whom she was compelled to feed by the irksome custom of hospitality. Her On my ride yesterday afternoon I found some brother was by far more open and courteous, very fine shells again below Bell’s garden but even he had no inner drive. Mr Porter and behind it and I saw the continuation of differed exceedingly from both by his lively the rock almost up to Jump up or Killmore activity and by his eagerness for knowledge Creek, while it begins from Wattle Pond through seeking and questioning. Creek on the other side of the Hunter, which I investigated previously. Mr Kelman’s daughter was born in Van Diemens Land and therefore is a *Currency So far I have moved from house to house lass*. How many impressions she lacks, with and from hut to hut and everywhere I have which a girl of her age in England is conversant. been received, not only kindly, but even She said she intends to go to England, about lovingly. The time of great wealth has passed which so much has been said to her. She wants and everyone has more or less returned to a to see it and then return here.