interior! A few camels, with skins for conveying water, would be the
means of effecting this great end in a very short time. In one month
these ships of the desert, as they have been appropriately called, might
accomplish, at a trifling expense, that which has been attempted in vain
by the outlay of so much money. When we consider that Australia is our
own continent, and that now, after sixty years of occupation, we are in
total ignorance of the interior, though thousands are annually spent in
geographical research, it seems not unreasonable to expect that so
important a question should at length be set at rest.

RETURN DOWN THE ALBERT.

In the whole continent there exists no point of departure to be compared
with the head of the Albert. The expedition should, as I have before
remarked, go to Investigator Road, fulfilling my prediction of the
ultimate importance of that port, which lies only twenty-seven miles
North-North-West from the entrance. Here the flat-bottomed boats, taken
out in frame, for the purpose of carrying up the camels, should be put
together, and towed from thence to the river.

A shout from Brown, who, alarmed at my lengthened absence, had come in
search of me, roused me from the reverie in which I was indulging, and
which had carried me rolling along on the back of a camel, girded round
with an anti-pleurisy belt, over many miles of the new lands of
Australia. Returning with him I rejoined the rest of the party, and we
all moved back in the silence that usually succeeds great excitement,
towards the boats. Mr. Forsyth having made the necessary observations for
latitude, we were soon following the downward course of the Albert.

KANGAROO POINT.