Your obedient servant,
W. Landsborough.
Commander of Victorian and Queensland Party Organised at Brisbane.
...
In reply to the above he was instructed to sell his equipment and proceed
to Melbourne.
...
About a month after Landsborough's arrival in Melbourne intelligence was
received that McKinlay and his party, who had gone from South Australia
in search of Burke and Wills in August of last year, had safely reached
Port Denison in August of this year. No tidings of McKinlay had been
heard from the time of his finding poor Gray's grave on Cooper's Creek,
where he learned the fate of Burke and Wills. His future instructions
were to proceed to Stuart's route and search for a goldfield on a part of
it which had been described by Stuart as giving indications of being
auriferous; but in consequence of the flooded state of the country he was
unable to go in that direction. He therefore proceeded to Carpentaria,
exploring the country chiefly in the middle part of his journey on a
track betwixt Burke's and Landsborough's, and afterwards tracing down the
Leichhardt River. At Carpentaria, where he expected to get supplies of
flour, tea, and sugar, the depot being abandoned, his hopes were
disappointed, and he was obliged to proceed to Port Denison, a distance
of about 700 miles, without either of these articles. On his arrival at
Melbourne with some members of his party the reception given to
Landsborough and them by the public was so cordial that we consider the
following report (taken from the Argus) of the meeting held to do them
honour will be read with interest.