To this opinion I felt constrained to yield, and Mr.
Walker, having at my desire repeated it in a letter this afternoon, I arranged my plans accordingly.
LIGHT EXPLORING PARTY SENT FORWARD UNDER LIEUTENANT LUSHINGTON.
The march in advance, which, had my health permitted, I had intended to make myself, was now deputed to Mr.Lushington: four of those men who remained the strongest of our enfeebled band were selected for an excursion of three days under him; after which we were to return to the vessel.
April 1 and 2.
At dawn on Sunday the 1st the party started; and these two days I occupied myself in making magnetic and astronomical observations.

Our latitude I found by two meridian altitudes of the moon to be 16 degrees 0 minutes 45 seconds south, and our longitude by chronometer 125 degrees 11 minutes east.
REPORT OF ADVANCED PARTY.
April 3.
Mr.Lushington's party came in at 12 o'clock this day, reporting as follows: That they proceeded about eighteen miles from the camp upon a course of 195 degrees from the north, and the remaining half upon a course of 155 1/2 degrees; that the whole of their route lay over a country utterly impassable for horses owing to the steepness of the hills; that they crossed a great number of under-features at right angles to their route, between which lay small streams flowing away to the westward, and which under-features were so steep in their descent to the southward that, in going down, the men repeatedly fell: both grass and water were however everywhere abundant; and they saw, in the spots where the grass was most luxuriant, the root which I found on the hill at our first encampment on the good land.

The last point they attained was a lofty hill which ran out from a range to the eastward, from which range sprang also all the under-features that they had crossed.

From this hill they had an extensive view to the northward, eastward, and westward.

The land they saw to the northward is laid down upon my map.
THEIR DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.
To the eastward they saw nothing but ranges of hills, precisely resembling those that we had crossed since entering this mountainous district; and to the westward others of the same nature, but gradually falling in that direction, whilst on the other hand the land seemed to rise gently to the eastward, though they saw no very high hills in an easterly direction.