where they had left the depôt party, instead of seeing the white tents of the camp gleaming in the rays of the declining sun, they saw nothing but the stockade now deserted by its former occupants. _There was no one there!_ On looking eagerly around their eyes fell on the word DIG, cut in the bark of a tree. They anxiously turned up the soil, and unearthed a small parcel of provisions and a bottle containing a letter from Brahé, in which the disappointed men read with sinking hearts that he and his party had left the depôt _only that very morning_. The document ran thus:-- "Depôt, Cooper's Creek, _April 21st, 1861_. "The depôt party of the V.E.E. leaves this camp to-day to return to the Darling. I intend to go S.E. from camp 60 deg., to get into our old track near Bulloo. Two of my companions and myself are quite well; the third, Patten, has been unable to walk for the last eighteen days, as his leg has been severely hurt when thrown by one of the horses. No one has been up here from the Darling. We have six camels and twelve horses in good working condition. "WILLIAM BRAHE." This was appalling news to the brave explorers, who, with their more than four months' severe travelling and unparalleled privations, were almost paralysed, and so exhausted that the slightest exertion produced in their pain-racked bodies such sensations of torture and utter helplessness as to render them more fit for a hospital than any further efforts on their part whatever. We will now leave the three abandoned men to recover from the first shock of their bitter disappointment, while we relate the circumstances that prevented the depôt party remaining at their post. Previous to departing from Cooper's Creek, Burke sent a despatch to the Exploration Committee. In it he writes:--"I have every confidence in Brahé. The feed is good. There is no danger to be apprehended from the natives. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent the party remaining here until our return, or until their provisions run short." Burke's verbal instructions to Brahé were very indefinite. He led him to understand that the depôt party should remain at Cooper's Creek for three months, and that if the advance party did not return within that time the camp could be broken up, and Brahé and his party would be at liberty to quit the creek.