of the exploration when the camels were
lost, in the following letter to his sister:--

Cooper's Creek, December 6th, 1860. Latitude 27 degrees 36 minutes,
Longitude 141 degrees 30 seconds.

MY DEAR BESSY,

You must excuse my writing with a pencil; ink dries so rapidly that
it is a nuisance to use it. We have been here now about three
weeks, and shall, I expect, make a start northwards in about a
fortnight. Our journey to this point has been interesting, but not
in any particular that you will care much about. Our party here
consists of eight men, sixteen camels, and fourteen horses. We
expect the rest of the men and camels up in a few weeks. Everything
has been very comfortable so far; in fact, more like a picnic party
than a serious exploration: but I suppose we shall have some little
difficulties to contend with soon. I had an intimation of something
of the kind a few days ago, having been out reconnoitring the
country to the north for three days, with one man and three camels,
and had found no water, so that the animals were very thirsty, and
on the third night managed to get away from us, leaving us about
eighty miles from the main camp, without hay or water, except what
remained of that which we had brought with us; so here was nothing
for it, but to walk home as soon as we could, carrying as much
water as possible, to be drunk on the way. After searching about in
order to be sure that the camels had gone home, we started at about
half-past seven, and were lucky enough to find a creek with some
water in it about ten miles on, where we remained until evening;
for it is dry work travelling in the middle of the day, with the
thermometer varying from 90 to 105 degrees in the shade, and about
140 degrees in the sun. Well, we started again in the evening and
walked until between nine and ten P.M.; and again at three A.M. and
pushed on until midday. We then went on from five P.M., as before,
until nine P.M.; and then from two A.M., and reached the camp at
nine A.M., having walked more than eighty miles in rather less than
fifty hours, including sleeping, feeding, and all stoppages. We
found no water all the way, except what I have mentioned above, so
that, as you may imagine, we ran rather short towards the end of
our journey, having not quite half a pint left between us. When we
stopped to rest the second night, it had been blowing a hot wind
all day, with the thermometer at 107 degrees in the shade. This
made us r