1845, Mitchell's Route 1845 and 1846,
and Kennedy's Route 1847 and 1848]

On his first expedition he was insufficiently equipped, had but
inexperienced men with him, and was a bad bushman himself. In fact the
journal of the trip reads to a man accustomed to bush life like the fable
of The Babes in the Wood; yet he managed to blunder through. On his
second expedition he was amply provided, and most of his companions were
experienced men, but it proved a miserable fiasco.

His great confidence in himself led him to ignore or undervalue the fact,
patent to others, that he was no bushman either by instinct or training.
And he seemed to prefer for companions men like himself, who could not
detect this failing, as is evident from a letter written by him to W.
Hull, of Melbourne, with reference to a young man who was anxious to join
his party. In this letter he enumerates the qualities that he considers
necessary in a follower:--

"Activity, good humour, sound moral principle, elasticity of mind and
body, and perfect willingness to obey my orders, even though given
harshly...I have been extremely unfortunate in the choice of my former
companions."

The last remark is an unworthy one, and of course applies to the
companions of his second expedition. He does not include a knowledge of
open-air life amongst his qualifications, nor the needful bushmanship;
and apparently in Leichhardt's opinion, a useless man of good moral
principle would be as acceptable to an explorer as a good bushman of
doubtful morality. It causes one to inquire whether the devoted men who
toiled for Sturt, private soldiers and prisoners of the Crown, were men
of sound moral principle? This extract affords an insight into
Leichhardt's failures. He wanted only those men who would blindly and
ignorantly obey and believe in him. For a man of Leichhardt's
temperament, such men were not to be found: he had missed the fairy gift
at birth -- all the essentials of good leadership.

Stuart Russell, in his Genesis of Queensland, cites his shrewd old
stockman's opinion of Dr. Leichhardt, as he was just before his first
trip. The station from which Leichhardt started on that occasion was near
Russell's, so that the man spoke from personal knowledge: "It's my belief
that if Dr. Leichhardt do it at all, 'twill be more by good luck than
management. Why, sir, he hasn't got the knack of some of us; why it comes
like mother's milk to some. I can't tell how or why, but it