It has been, however, already
ascertained from native information that a considerable quantity of rain
has recently fallen over the regions to be explored, and that no
impediment may be anticipated from a scarcity of water there.

6. The route to be followed might advantageously commence at Newcastle,
where some of your party and several of your horses are to be picked up,
and thence proceed north-easterly to Goomaling, and 100 miles further in
the same general direction, passing eastward to Mounts Chunbaren and
Kenneth of Mr. Austin's, to the eastern farthest of that explorer, in 119
degrees East and 28 3/4 degrees South. Thence the general north-easterly
route of the expedition must be governed by the information afforded by
your native guides as to the locality in which they have reported the
remains of white men are to be found.

7. On arriving at that spot, the greatest care is to be taken to bring
away all such remains as may be discovered by a diligent search of the
neighbourhood. By friendly and judicious treatment of the local natives,
it is also probable that several articles of European manufacture which
are said to be still in their possession might be bartered from them, and
serve towards identifying their former owners. The prospect of obtaining
from the natives, at this remote date, anything like a journal,
note-book, or map, would indeed be small; but the greatest interest would
be attached to the smallest scrap of written or printed paper, however
much defaced, if only covered with legible characters. A more promising
mode by which the former presence of European explorers on the spot might
be detected is the marks which are generally made on the trees by
travellers to record the number or reference to a halting-place, or the
initials of some of the party. Thus the letter L has in several instances
been found by searching parties to have been legibly cut on trees in the
interior of the eastern colonies, and in localities supposed to have been
visited by the eminent explorer alluded to. It is needless to point out
that metal articles, such as axes, tomahawks, gun and pistol barrels,
iron-work of pack-saddles, and such like, would be far more likely to
have survived through the lapse of years than articles of a more
perishable nature.

8. After exhausting all conceivable means of obtaining information on the
spot, and from the nature of surrounding country, an attempt should be
made to follow back on th