The party consisted of eighteen persons, as follows: commander A.C. Gregory; assistant commander, H.C. Gregory; geologist, J.S. Wilson; artist and storekeeper, J. Baines; surgeon and naturalist, J.R. Elsey; botanist, F. Mueller; collector and preserver, J. Flood; overseer, G. Phibbs; stockmen, etc., C. Humphries, R. Bowman, C. Dean, J. Melville, W. Dawson, W. Shewell, W. Selby, S. Macdonald, H. Richards, J. Fahey.

Having hobbled the horses, we crossed over to the camp, which was established at a small spring, and found Mr. Elsey and two of the men in charge.

Mr. Elsey informed me that the schooner had grounded on the bank below Mosquito Flat, and had received considerable damage.

By observed altitudes on the meridian, the latitude of the camp 15 degrees 34 minutes 30 seconds. 6th November. Messrs. H. Gregory, Elsey, and Mueller, with two men and the master of the schooner, proceeded up the river in the gig to ascertain the most convenient spot for procuring timber for the repair of the vessel; the men variously employed coopering casks, fencing garden, etc.

It appears that on the 30th September, while the schooner was aground in the lower part of the Victoria, Mr. Wilson landed to search for fresh water at Mosquito Flat; having made some indefinite arrangements with Mr. Elsey to signalize for a boat, should he require it, to return to the vessel; but he omitted to acquaint either the master of the schooner, or Mr. Baines, who was next in command to Mr. Wilson.

Richards' arm does not progress in a favourable manner, and it is therefore necessary that Mr. Elsey should remain at the camp to attend to his case.

The party remaining in charge of the principal camp: Geologist, J.S. Wilson; surgeon, J.R. Elsey; overseer, C. Humphries; stockmen, Dawson, Shewell, Selby, Macdonald, Richards, Melville.

At 7.30 a.m. resumed our journey down the valley to the junction of the creek with the Victoria River, which we followed down, crossing the ridge at Steep Head at 10.20, and reached the principal camp at 5.30 p.m., where we were welcomed by Mr. Elsey, who was in charge, Mr. Wilson being absent down the river at the schooner, which had been laid on the shingle bank near the Dome to complete repairs.

Messrs. Wilson, Elsey, and Mueller returned with the long-boat and gig from the schooner, having been about thirty miles up Baines' River to the south-west of Curiosity Hill.

Mr. Elsey proceeded in the gig with Phibbs, Humphries, Selby, and Adams, conveying the two sick men and boy belonging to the schooner crew to the Tom Tough.

Mr. Elsey returned with the gig from the schooner; boat's crew: Phibbs, Humphries, and Selby; the sick men had reached the vessel without any serious difficulty, although the boat grounded on the banks, and was thereby detained till next tide, and thus kept them several hours exposed to the rain.

At 10.0 a.m. left the principal camp on the Victoria with a party consisting of Messrs. H. Gregory, Elsey, and Dr. Mueller, Robert Bowman, Charles Dean, and J. Melville, seven saddle and twenty-seven pack horses, conveying five months' provisions of salt pork and meat biscuits, and six months' supply of flour, tea, sugar, coffee, etc., twenty-six pounds of gunpowder, sixty pounds bullets, 1 hundredweight shot, 5000 caps, etc.

Moved the camp to the waterholes twelve miles south-east, and in the afternoon rode down the creek with Mr. Elsey; the creek turned to the south-south-east for a mile and a half, and was lost on a level flat, from which a channel trended to the west, which was again lost in a level flat extending to the west several miles.

Accompanied by Mr. Elsey, I proceeded to reconnoitre the country to the south-east, and at 7.45 a.m. steered 130 degrees, gradually ascending the tableland, and which was openly wooded with bloodwood, box, and white-gum; acacia and sterculia occasionally appearing.

This creek is named Elsey Creek on the map.

ELSEY CREEK.

Resuming our journey at 8.10 a.m., steered north-east down the valley of the creek, which I named Elsey Creek, after the surgeon of the expedition.

Leaving our camp at 7.10 a.m., steered north-east till 9.0, over level country, which appeared to be very swampy in the rainy season; altered the course to 10 degrees magnetic, and crossed a small dry watercourse which proved to be a continuation of Elsey Creek.

At 11.0 turned 60 degrees magnetic, and shortly came on the bank of a fine river with banks thirty to forty feet high, and fine reaches of water fifty to eighty yards wide; at 11.45 camped at the junction of Elsey Creek and the river, which appears to be the Roper of Dr. Leichhardt.

The fan-palm was frequently seen on the banks of Elsey Creek, where it obtained a height of fifty to eighty feet, and had a thicker stem and produced a more palatable vegetable than the species growing on the banks of the Victoria River.

These memoranda were enclosed in a powder-canister, and Messrs. Elsey and Bowman took them down to the marked tree and buried them.

Mr. Elsey walked half a mile to the eastward; came to a river eighty yards wide, but observing some blacks, returned to the camp.

H.C. Gregory was second in command, Ferdinand von Mueller was botanist, J.S. Wilson geologist, J.R. Elsey surgeon and naturalist, and J. Baines artist and storekeeper.

Traversing the tributaries of the Victoria on his homeward way, Gregory met with no remarkable incident until his arrival on the Elsey, a tributary of the Roper River, which he named after the surgeon of the expedition.

Elsey, J.R. Eulah.