Amongst other items of news in the despatches was the report of Leichhardt's return, and of the hearty reception that he had been accorded in Sydney.

One piece of random information, a mere floating newspaper surmise, but enough to arouse Mitchell's suspicious temper, annoyed him greatly.

"We understand," it ran, "the intrepid Dr.
Leichhardt is about to start another expedition to the Gulf, keeping to the westward of the coast ranges." As this seemed to indicate an intention of trespassing on Mitchell's present field of operations, he naturally felt some resentment not likely to be allayed by such a paragraph as the following: "Australia Felix and the discoveries of Sir Thomas Mitchell now dwindle into comparative insignificance." Again leaving Kennedy, he set out to make a very extended excursion.
Traversing the country from the head of the Maranoa, he discovered the Warrego River.

Keeping north, over the watershed, for a time he fondly imagined that he had reached northward-flowing waters; but the direction of the rivers that he found, the Claude and the Nogoa, soon convinced him of his error, and that he was on rivers of the east coast.

Even when he had reached the Belyando, a river which he named and followed down for a short distance, he still deluded himself that he had reached inland waters.