Isaacs and three of his late companions, left Stuart
Russell's station on a short excursion, during which he crossed to the
Balonne and back, making some subordinate discoveries.
Still persisting in his idea of crossing the continent, and fearful that
he might be forestalled, he made great efforts to get together a small
party of some sort to make another attempt. He succeeded; but this time
his party was neither so well provided nor so large. In fact, very little
is known of the members constituting it. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, speaking
of this final trip, says:--
"The parties who accompanied Leichhardt were, perhaps, little capable of
shifting for themselves in case of any accident to their leader. The
second in command, a brother-in-law of Leichhardt, came from Germany to
join him just before starting, and he told me, when I asked him what his
qualifications for the journey were, that he had been at sea, had
suffered shipwrecks, and was, therefore, well able to endure hardship. I
do not know what his other qualifications were."
For some inexplicable reason, this man, whose name was Classen or
Klausen, has always been selected as the hero of the many tales that have
been brought in of a solitary survivor of the party living in captivity
with the natives; probably, because his was the only name besides
Leichhardt's generally known and remembered.
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