Charley did not succeed in bringing in the horses and cattle sufficiently early for starting on the long and difficult passage over the range.

Our meat was all consumed; but we wished to reserve our bullocks for Christmas, which was, in every one of us, so intimately associated with recollections of happy days and merriment, that I was determined to make the coming season as merry as our circumstances permitted.

This decision being final, every one cheerfully submitted to a small allowance, and did his best to procure game.

Our latitude was 24 degrees 43 minutes.
Dec.

13 .-- We travelled along the spur at the west and south-west side of Erythrina creek, at which we had been encamped; and, after having headed the whole system of its gullies--keeping to the right along the main range for about three miles, we came to the spur on which I and Charley had ascended on our return, and which had a general direction to the north-west.