Leichhardt as a bushman

Ludwig Leichhardt

| Introduction | The Bushman | Failure of the Second Expedition |

Leichhardt as a bushman
During the 20th century there was a wave of criticism of Leichhardt and his methods by a number of writers, most notably by A.H. Chisholm in his book Strange Journey. However, Leichhardt was different from many explorers of Australia (eg Burke and Wills) in that he lived off the land as far as possible. Bruce Simpson wrote in his book In Leichhardt's Footsteps (1997):

Many armchair critics have decried Leichhardt's ability as a bushman. As an experienced bushman myself, I have found it difficult to fault him. ... Despite weak eyesight, he exhibited better bushmanship than he has ever been credited with. He was certainly a better bushman than Mitchell, who ventured nowhere without a compass. ... Without doubt his journey to Port Essington was one of the greatest feats in the annals of exploration. When one considers that it was carried out without government assistance, the achievement assumes even greater significance. ... Leichhardt had a philosophy, simple yet radical for the times: where indigenous people could live and thrive on what nature provided, so too could he and his party. ... Nothing that grew, swam, crawled, hopped, ran or flew escaped his scrutiny. His knowledge of botany was invaluable, and he had a scientist's curiosity coupled with a willingness to try anything.

Leichhardt learned all he could from the Aborigines and this enabled him and his exploring party to live off the land to a great extent, unlike some other explorers, who carried lots of food with them. Bruce Simpson wrote:

He studied the food the Aborigines ate and the method of preparation. As a botanist Leichhardt was fascinated by the native plants and fruits eaten by the Aborigines, and his interest was to have practical long-term benefits - no member of the party suffered from scurvy on the long journey to Port Essington, in marked contrast to the disasters visited on other explorers by this disease caused by the lack of vitamin C.

During Charles Sturt's inland expedition from Adelaide that took place at the same time, scurvy disabled all the expedition members, killed one man, and the sickness had a permanent effect on Sturt. Leichhardt's experiments with native plants and animals saved his party. For example, he realised that the spinach-like herb known as fat-hen was effective against scurvy. They found a lot of it around Gilbert's Range and Leichhardt described it as "an excellent vegetable".

Each day of the Port Essington expedition contained never-ending work, especially for Leichhardt. He had to decide on a suitable campsite for the night, and having made that decision he had to make sure his men and animals were fed and sheltered. On the same day he had to ride ahead and find water for the next day's stage of the journey. Leichhardt made more than forty reconnaissance rides himself. Noone else in the party had to make more than nine. Leichhardt also took measurements to record their position, and wrote up every geological, botanical and zoological feature they encountered, and developed a map of the route, recording every river, mountain, range and lake they saw, and gave to these places names of people in the colony who had helped him. This made them very happy of course when Leichhardt returned, because up until then many places on the white map of Australia were named after aristocrats in far-away England who had never been to Australia. Leichhardt was under no obligation to name places after people in England because his expedition was privately organised, not financed by the government.

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