He lacked tact, and was deficient in practical knowledge of the bush, and especially in what is known as bushmanship.
One fixed idea of his was, that in dry country if one can only keep on far enough one is bound to come to water: a theory plausible enough if it could be carried out to its logical conclusion; but the application of which often involves a physical impossibility.

And it must be taken into consideration that Leichhardt had never travelled in the dry country of the interior, but that what small experience he possessed had been gained on the fairly well-watered coast.

He asserts in his journal that cattle and horses trust entirely to the sense of vision for finding water, and not to the sense of smell.

The exact reverse is of course the case.
The character of the lost explorer will thus be seen to have militated strongly against his success when he came to be pitted against the -- to him -- unknown dangers of a dry season in the far interior.

But his fatal self-confidence led him to challenge the desert, thinking that he must succeed where better men had been denied even the hope of success.