Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Letter fragment found on Lasseter’s body

Letter fragment found on Lasseter’s body

Presented September 2015

MLMSS 9742


‘I’m done for’

Here are the last words of a dying man; fragments of words that convey the hopeless desperation felt by Harold Lasseter as he lay dying in a cave near the Petermann Ranges in Central Australia. Starving and nearly blind, his dreams of discovering a rich reef of gold during the Great Depression were shattered as he wrote his last words to his wife.

The discovery of this letter is featured in Warren Brown’s new book, Lasseter's Gold.


Transcription of the fragment

By Elise Edmonds

day the treacherous   /   they have made no

Wattee mitta mitta   /   to build me a

big revolver he should   /   anything for shade

a warning. If it were   /   78th day no food

I could have got   /   I realise my end is

he is now dragging   /   I also realise ha

want for some   /   the appeal I

too weak to   /   blacks from the

thout assistance   /   saw nearly blind

his arm round me   /   about the body is st

dragged me five   /   help with all speed

now lying in the   /   a pack horse or ridi

te sand in the   /   might have got to

rek where they   /   but what hurts most

one old woman   /   Is not to know why

feed of ripe figs   /   weak to stand & have

I’m done for   /   Dysentery that will


A more detailed account of Lasseter’s reef can be found on the State Library of NSW’s website in the Stories section.