Landsborough was now back in well-known country; some of it, in fact, he had been over before himself, and from the number of trees they saw marked with different initials, it was evident that before long stock would be on its way out. He crossed on to the Warrego, followed that river down, and on the 21st of May came to the station of Messrs. Neilson and Williams, where they heard of the fate of Burke and Wills, the objects of their search. From here the party proceeded to the Darling, and finally to Melbourne.
On Landsborough's arrival in Melbourne, he found that rumour had accredited him with being more interested in looking for available pastoral country than in hunting for Burke and Wills. So far as can be seen, this accusation was utterly groundless, as there was no saying to what part of the Gulf Burke and Wills would penetrate, and he was as likely to meet with traces of them on the Barcoo as well as anywhere else. With the general belief then current, of the desert nature of the interior, nobody dreamt that four inexperienced men would have been able to cross so easily in such a straight line.
The charge lay in a newspaper paragraph that went the round of the daily papers, an extract from which runs as follows:—
"Great credit must be given to Mr. Landsborough for the celerity with which he has accomplished the expedition. At the same time, its object seems to have been lost sight of at a very early stage of the journey, as there was not the remotest probability of striking Burke's track after quitting the Flinder's River, and taking a S.S.E. course for the remainder of the way. In fact, from that moment all mention [This is incorrect. Landsborough particularly mentions in his journal during his trip to the Barcoo, how anxiously he endeavoured to find out from the natives if they had seen anybody with camels.] ceases to be made of the ostensible purpose for which the party was organised, until Mr. Landsborough reached the Warrego, and received the intelligence of Burke and Wills having perished, at which great surprise was expressed. But supposing these gallant men to have been still living, and anxiously awaiting succour at some one of the ninety camping places at which they halted, on their arduous journey between the depôt and the Gulf what excuse could Mr. Landsborough have offered for giving so wide a berth to the probable route of the explorers, and for omitting to endeavour to strike their track, traces of which had been reported on the Flinders by Mr Walker? We may be reminded that 'all's well that ends well,' that the lamented explorers were beyond the reach of human assistance, and that Mr. Landsborough has achieved a most valuable result in following the course he did; but we cannot help remarking that in so doing he seems to have been more intent upon serving the cause of pastoral settlement than upon ascertaining if it were possible to afford relief to the missing men. The impression produced by a perusal of the dispatch which we published on Saturday last is that the writer was commissioned to open up a practicable route from the Warrego to the Flinders, and not that he was the leader of a party which had been organized and dispatched 'for the purpose of rendering relief, if possible, to the missing explorers under the command of Mr. Burke.' We do not wish to detract one iota from the credit due to Mr. Landsborough for what he has actually effected, but we must not lose sight of 'the mission of humanity' in which he was professedly engaged, nor the fact that this mission was replaced by one of a totally different character, strengthening, as this circumstance does, the conviction, which is gaining ground in the public mind, that we have been deluded in expending large sums of money in sending out relief expeditions which were chiefly employed in exploring available country for the benefit of the Government and people of Queensland. The cost and the empty honour has been ours, but theirs has been the substantial gain."
The reply to this is very simple. In the first place, Howitt had been sent especially to follow up Burke from the start, and would therefore be supposed to be searching the country on the direct course. Again, Walker was—as Landsborough thought—then following the homeward track of the lost party. The only chance of affording succour to the missing men, left to Landsborough, was the remote one of accidentally coming upon them. Nobody could have reasonably supposed that such a costly and elaborately got up expedition would have degenerated into a scamper across to the Gulf, and a scramble back over the same country.
Apart from all this, Landsborough did not apply for a lease of any of the country discovered by him on the search expedition, the country called Bowen Downs having been his discovery of two years previously, and considering that he closed his days in comparative poverty, after all his labour, such insinuations as the above are most unjust, and would be hardly worthy of comment save for the prominent and adverse notice taken of it by William Howitt, in general such an impartial historian.
The late William Landsborough first went north to Queensland in 1853. In 1854 Messrs. Landsborough and Ranken formed a station on the Kolan River, between Gayndah and Gladstone, where between bad seasons and blacks they had considerable trouble. In 1856 his exploring career commenced in the district of Broadsound and the Isaacs River. In 1858 he explored the Comet to the watershed, and in the following year the head-waters of the Thomson.
An old friend and comrade, writing of him, says:—
"Landsborough's enterprise was entirely founded on his own self-reliance. He had neither Government aid nor capitalists at his back when he achieved his success as an explorer. He was the very model of a pioneer—courageous, hardy, good-humoured, and kindly. He was an excellent horseman, a most entertaining and, at times, eccentric companion, and he could starve with greater cheerfulness than any man I ever saw or heard of. But excellent fellow though he was, his very independence of character and success in exploring provoked much ill-will."
It is to be hoped, therefore, that in future Landsborough's great services will be regarded in a more just light than they were by some of his contemporaries, particularly some living explorers, who resemble the one alluded to by Dr. Lang:—