ntaining an application for
Lieutenant Woods to be allowed to accompany you on the expedition which
you command, in order to fix your position in a correct and proper
manner:

I have the honour to inform you that it was the desire of the Exploration
Committee I should furnish that assistance to Mr. Walker, and, having
only one officer that I can spare for that duty, I must withhold my
consent until I see Mr. Walker and you are nearer your departure. And
further, as I understood from Mr. Gregory that Captain Alison was engaged
for the purpose of carrying out that important part of the duty, you will
be so good as to explain your reasons for want of confidence in him.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

(Signed) W.H. Norman, Commander.*

W. Landsborough, Esquire.

(*Footnote. I answered this letter; but, having sent a copy of it with
other papers from Carpentaria to Brisbane, I cannot at present present it
for publication.)

...

(COPY.)

(NUMBER 2.)

Norman's Group, Albert River, October 18 1861.

My dear Captain Norman,

I have much pleasure in informing you that we have landed safely
twenty-three horses, and have sent them to a waterhole which we have
called Frost's Ponds, where they had a great roll in the mud, which will,
I hope, protect their tender skins in some measure from the sun and
sandflies; two of the weak ones we have kept on board.

The wind and the time of high-water (at night) was very unfavourable for
going up the river, and, as we were short of water, I need not tell you
how glad I was to know of waterholes to which I could drive the horses.
Three parties went in search of water the day before yesterday, and were
all successful in finding it. Mr. Campbell went with one party and found
water on the west bank up the river. I went on the east bank, and in an
easterly direction got onto a finely grassed, openly timbered country,
within three miles, and at the edge of the timber, in less than three
miles further, found a fine waterhole, besides shallow ones, nearly all
along the last-mentioned distance. Mr. Frost found a fine waterhole
within five miles of here, to which we have driven the horses, as it was
on the route which we had previously determined upon as the best to take
if practicable.

I have not time at present to write you an official letter, except the
one I sent respecting Mr. Woods. The horses, from our having had from you
a liberal supply of water, are