Monday, 24th December, 1860.—­We took a day of rest on Gray’s Creek to celebrate Christmas.  This was doubly pleasant, as we had never, in our most sanguine moments, anticipated finding such a delightful oasis in the desert.  Our camp was really an agreeable place, for we had all the advantages of food and water, attending a position of a large creek or river, and were at the same time free from the annoyance of the numberless ants, flies, and mosquitoes that are invariably met with amongst timber or heavy scrub.

Tuesday, 25th December, 1860.—­We left Gray’s Creek at half-past four A.M. and proceeded to cross the earthy rotten plains in the direction of Eyre’s Creek.  At a distance of about nine miles we reached some lines of trees and bushes which were visible from the top of the sand ridge at Gray’s Creek.  We found them growing on the banks of several small creeks which trend to the north and north-north-west; at a mile and a half further we crossed a small creek north-north-east, and joining the ones above mentioned.  This creek contained abundance of water in small detached holes from fifty to a hundred links long, well shaded by steep banks and overhanging bushes.  The water had a suspiciously transparent colour and a slight trace of brackishness, but the latter was scarcely perceptible.  Near where the creek joined the holes is a sandhill and a dense mass of fine timber.  The smoke of a fire indicated the presence of blacks, who soon made their appearance and followed us for some distance, beckoning us away to the north-east.  We however continued our course north-west by north, but at a distance of one mile and a half found that the creek did not come round as we expected, and that the fall of the water was in a direction nearly opposite to our course, or about west to east.  We struck off north half west for a high sand ridge, from which we anticipated seeing whether it were worth while for us to follow the course of the creeks we had crossed.  We were surprised to find all the watercourses on the plains trending rather to the south of east, and at a distance of three miles, after changing our course, and when we approached the sandhills towards which we had been steering, we were agreeably pulled up by a magnificent creek coming from the north-north-west, and running in the direction of the fire we had seen.  We had now no choice but to change our course again, for we could not have crossed even if we had desired to do so.  On following up the south bank of the creek we found it soon keeping a more northerly course than it had where we first struck it.  This fact, together with its magnitude and general appearance, lessened the probability of its being Eyre’s Creek, as seemed at first very likely from their relative positions and directions.  The day being very hot and the camels tired from travelling over the earthy plains, which by-the-by are not nearly so bad as those at the head of Cooper’s Creek, we camped at one P.M., having traced the creek up about five miles,