At 3.0 a.m., the tide having fallen sufficiently, Messrs. Brown and Harding were enabled to bring in the horses left imprisoned last night. During the day, all the arrangements for our departure were completed, and in the afternoon Mr. Hearson was removed to the Dolphin, having been kept on shore since the accident, to be constantly under my own attendance; he was now rapidly recovering, although much reduced. Wrote instructions for the guidance of Captain Dixon and Mr. Walcott during the absence of the expedition, the latter gentleman being left in charge of the stores, and to make such observations as the means at his disposal should admit of. 24th May. Landed at daylight, intending to make a start, as it was the Queen's birthday; but owing to some of the horses having rambled, we did not succeed in getting them all in and saddled up before 2.0 p.m., when three or four of the horses that had not been accustomed to carrying packs commenced playing up and scattering their loads in all directions, straining and otherwise injuring several of the pack-saddles, which detained us until so late in the day that I deemed it best to return to camp, and as the forge had not been removed to the ship, to shorten some of the saddle-irons, to render them less liable to injury, which was otherwise a great improvement. 25th May. The re-adjustments having been satisfactorily accomplished, we made a fair start this morning by 9.0 a.m., and arrived on the edge of the marsh by 11.30, where, having first taken a survey of the several channels from the summit of a high granite hill, we entered the waste of mud at a point where it did not appear to be more than two miles wide; an hour's struggle carried us fairly through on to terra firma, only one horse having to be assisted by the removal of his load. After resting an hour and a half for dinner, we resumed our route in a south direction, across an extensive low grassy plain of red clayey loam, passing over a few rocky ridges at sunset, and at 6 p.m. encamped on a dry creek twenty yards wide, water being found in some clay-pans in the adjoining plain. Camp 2. MAITLAND RIVER. 26th May.