The following paper was placed in the depôt by Burke before starting:-- "Depôt No. 2, Cooper's Creek, Camp 65. The return party from Carpentaria consisting of myself, Wills and King (Gray dead), arrived here last night, and found that the depôt party had started on the same day. We proceed on to-morrow slowly down the creek to Adelaide, by Mount Hopeless, and shall endeavour to follow Gregory's track, but we are very weak. The two camels are done up and we shall not be able to travel faster than two or three miles a day. Gray died on the road from exhaustion and fatigue. We have all suffered much from hunger. The provisions left here will, I think, restore our strength. We have discovered a practicable route to Carpentaria, the chief portion of which lies on 140 deg. of east longitude. There is some good country between this and the Stony Desert. From there to the tropics the country is dry and stony. Between the tropics and Carpentaria a considerable portion is rangy, but it is well-watered and richly-grassed. We reached the shores of Carpentaria on February 11th, 1861. Greatly disappointed at finding the party here gone. "(Signed) ROBERT O'HARA BURKE. "April 22, 1861. "P.S.--The camels cannot travel, and we cannot walk or we should follow the other party. We shall move very slowly down the creek." After resting four or five days, and finding great advantage from their change of diet, the three men started, but one of the camels got bogged, and had to be shot as he lay in the creek, the explorers cutting off what meat they could from the body, and staying a couple of days to dry it in the sun. When they again started, the one camel they had left carried most of what they had, and they each took with them a bundle of about twenty-five pounds; but they made no progress, all the creeks they followed to the southward ran out into earthy plains and their one solitary beast of burden being knocked up, they had to return. Now commenced a terrible struggle for mere existence the camel being past recovery, was shot, and the meat dried, and then the men tried to live, after the fashion of the blacks, on fish and nardoo. The natives were especially kind to the unfortunate men. In Wills' diary we find frequent mention of the liberal hospitality they extended to them, but to a great extent the novelty soon died out, and the blacks began to find their white guests rather an encumbrance, and soon commenced shifting their camps to avoid the burden of their support. On the 27th May, Wills started alone to the depôt to deposit the journals, and a note stating their condition. He reached there on the 30th, and says in his diary:-- "No traces of anyone, except blacks, have been here since we left. Deposited some journals and a notice of our present condition." This was the notice:-- "May 30th, 1861.