Note 8 — XVIII.

The expedition discovered on the 21st April, 1858, in 24° 35′ S. and 146° 6′ W., an ash tree, two feet in diameter, on whose huge trunk the letter L had been deeply cut. Close by there were everywhere traces of a regular encampment, and an impression pretty universally prevailed that Leichhardt and his companions had camped here, and had cut this mark to indicate it. One of the oldest missionaries of Western Australia, the venerable Mr. C. Threlkeld, objected, however, to this view that the letter L, of which so much was spoken, had in all probability been made by one of the youthful natives, who when learning to read and write are in the habit of cutting the letters on the trees. We present here the precise passage of the text of a letter of Dr. Threlkeld's to us:—"I send you a spelling-book, that Billy Blue, one of the black boys, used to have, when he was learning to read and write. He and others used to go into the bush, and cut the letters of the alphabet on the barks of the trees, and Brown, an aboriginal lad, who went with the unfortunate Leichhardt, used to do the same. I suspect that he cut the celebrated L on the tree about which there is so much talk at the present time."