Ixvi Instructions to Leader, 



Creek, the Committee also desires that you should make further 

 detours to the right and left with the same object. 



The object of the Committee in directing you to Cooper's Creek 

 is, that you should explore the country intervening between it and 

 Lcichhardt's track south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, avoiding as far 

 as practicable Sturt's route on the west, and Gregory's down the 

 Victoria on the east. 



To this object the Committee wishes you to devote your energies 

 in the first instance, but should you determine the impracticability of 

 this route, you are desired to turn westAvard into the country recently 

 difjcovered by Stuart, and connect his furthest point northward with 

 Gregory's furthest southern exploration in 185G (Mount Wilson). 



In proceeding from Cooper's Creek to Stuart's country, you may 

 find the salt marshes an obstacle to the progress of the camels ; if so, 

 it is supposed you will be able to avoid these marshes by turning to 

 the northward as far as Eyre's Creek, where there is permanent 

 water, and going then westAvard to Stuart's furthest. Should you, 

 however, fail in connecting the two points of Stuart's and Gregory's 

 furthest, or should you ascertain that this space has been already 

 traversed, you are requested — if possible — to connect your explo- 

 rations with those of the younger Gregory in the vicinity of Mount 

 Gould, and thence you might proceed to Shark's Bay, or down the 

 Eiver Murchison to the settlements in Western Australia. 



This country would afford the means of recruiting the strength of 

 your party ; and you might, after a delay of five or six months, be 

 enabled, with the knowledge of the country you shall have previously 

 acquired, to return by a more direct route through South Australia to 

 Melbourne. 



If you should, however, have been successful in connecting Stuart's 

 with Gregory's furthest point in 1856 (Mount Wilson), and your 

 party should be equal to the task, you would probably find it possible 

 from thence to reach the country discovered by the younger Gregory. 

 The Committee is fully aware of the difiiculty of the country you 

 are called on to traverse, and, in giving you these instructions, has 

 placed these routes before you more as an indication of what it has 

 been deemed desirable to have accomplished, than as ii^icating any 

 exact course for you to pursue. 



The Committee considers you Avill find a better and a safer guide 

 in the natural features of the country through which you will have 

 to pass. For all useful and practical purposes, it will be better for 

 you and the object of future settlement that you should follow the 

 water courses, and the country jnelding herbage, than pursue any 

 route which the Committee might be able to sketch out from an im- 

 perfect map of Australia. 



The Committee entrusts you with the largest discretion as regards 

 the forming of depots, and your movements generally, but requests 

 that you avUI mark y<-)ur routes as permanently as possible, by leaving 



