EXPLORATION OF THE INTERIOR.

My position was in latitude 17 degrees 58 1/2 minutes South longitude 7 degrees 12 1/2 East of Port Essington, or 139 degrees 25 minutes East of Greenwich; and within four hundred miles from the centre of the continent.  What an admirable point of departure for exploring the interior!  A few camels, with skins for conveying water, would be the means of effecting this great end in a very short time.  In one month these ships of the desert, as they have been appropriately called, might accomplish, at a trifling expense, that which has been attempted in vain by the outlay of so much money.  When we consider that Australia is our own continent, and that now, after sixty years of occupation, we are in total ignorance of the interior, though thousands are annually spent in geographical research, it seems not unreasonable to expect that so important a question should at length be set at rest.

RETURN DOWN THE ALBERT.

In the whole continent there exists no point of departure to be compared with the head of the Albert.  The expedition should, as I have before remarked, go to Investigator Road, fulfilling my prediction of the ultimate importance of that port, which lies only twenty-seven miles North-North-West from the entrance.  Here the flat-bottomed boats, taken out in frame, for the purpose of carrying up the camels, should be put together, and towed from thence to the river.

A shout from Brown, who, alarmed at my lengthened absence, had come in search of me, roused me from the reverie in which I was indulging, and which had carried me rolling along on the back of a camel, girded round with an anti-pleurisy belt, over many miles of the new lands of Australia.  Returning with him I rejoined the rest of the party, and we all moved back in the silence that usually succeeds great excitement, towards the boats.  Mr. Forsyth having made the necessary observations for latitude, we were soon following the downward course of the Albert.

KANGAROO POINT.

We reached the mouth before daylight on the 6th.  This was the coldest morning we had experienced; the thermometer being at 51 degrees with a strong breeze from South-South-East, which rendered somewhat dangerous the task of collecting the requisite soundings on the bar at the mouth; the gig being once or twice nearly half filled in doing so.  Behind the eastern entrance point, was seen a large light-coloured kangaroo, which, for want of a better, afforded us a name.  Our observations refer to this spot, Kangaroo Point, which they place in latitude 17 degrees 35 minutes 10 seconds South and longitude 7 degrees 35 minutes 50 seconds East of Port Essington.  Instead of the usual mangrove shore, the coast to the eastward was sandy; but the most remarkable feature, hereabouts, is a clump of tall mangroves, towering over their fellow evergreens, close to the western entrance point.  They are called in the chart the High Trees of Flinders,