himself and party from destruction on record, having only penetrated
to the East Alligator River, about 80 miles from Adam Bay; here he
became surrounded by floods, and only saved his own and the lives of
his party (loosing all else) by the desperate expedient of making a
boat of the hides of their horses, in which they floated down the
swollen river, and eventually reached the Settlement. It is not
improbable that in some such a flood poor Leichhardt and his little
band lost their lives, and all trace of their fate has been
destroyed. These experiences have caused some doubt and despondency
as to the future of the new Settlement, and the question is now being
agitated in the South Australian Parliament as to the desirability or
not of abandoning it.

Western Australia has formed the Settlements of Camden Harbor, and
Nickol Bay. The latter (the country around which was explored by Mr.
Francis Gregory, brother to the Surveyor-General of Queensland, in
1861), appears to have progressed favorably, the Grey, Gascoigne,
Oakover and Lyons Rivers affording inducements to stockholders to
occupy them, but the Settlement of Camden Harbor at the time of the
visit of Mr. Stow in his boat-voyage from Adam Bay to Champion Bay,
was being abandoned by the colonists, the country being unsuitable
for stock, and it would appear from that gentleman's account that the
whole of the north-west coast of the continent, from its general
character, offers but little inducement for settlement.

[footnote] *Since this was written the settlement has been abandoned.
[NOTE--the footnote in the INTRODUCTION does not have a referent in
the text--there is no asterisk in the text. It is not clear
whether the 'settlement' it refers to as having been abandoned is at
Adam Bay or in Western Australia.]