t River depot, I consider that if I
had waited a few weeks when I reached the 138th meridian I would have had
the advantage of the wet season, and might have proceeded by that route,
or at all events gone south from that meridian provided I had sufficient
equipment for that purpose.

My opinion was, as may be seen in my correspondence with Captain Norman,
that Burke and Wills had gone from their depot by Bowen Downs towards
Carpentaria. I therefore came overland that way, and as I did not learn
anything of their party from the blacks when I reached there I proceeded
to the settled country.

For my part I must say that I think, with the information we had then, we
took the most probable route for finding Burke's party. In all our
expeditions we followed the watercourses and went over more ground than I
thought it should have been possible to do with our small and shipwrecked
equipment.

I never imagined that Burke and Wills would have been able to walk
straight from Cooper's Creek across what I thought was in a great measure
a desert to Carpentaria. It should also be remembered that when I wrote
my letter to you on my arrival at the Darling River we had learned all
about the fate of Burke's party, and the time was past for saying much
about our want of success with respect to them.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

W. Landsborough.

Commander of Victorian and Queensland Party Organised at Brisbane.

...

In reply to the above he was instructed to sell his equipment and proceed
to Melbourne.

...

About a month after Landsborough's arrival in Melbourne intelligence was
received that McKinlay and his party, who had gone from South Australia
in search of Burke and Wills in August of last year, had safely reached
Port Denison in August of this year. No tidings of McKinlay had been
heard from the time of his finding poor Gray's grave on Cooper's Creek,
where he learned the fate of Burke and Wills. His future instructions
were to proceed to Stuart's route and search for a goldfield on a part of
it which had been described by Stuart as giving indications of being
auriferous; but in consequence of the flooded state of the country he was
unable to go in that direction. He therefore proceeded to Carpentaria,
exploring the country chiefly in the middle part of his journey on a
track betwixt Burke's and Landsborough's, and afterwards tracing down the
Leichhardt River. At Carpentaria, where he exp