In March, 1833, the party formed under the superintendence of the Surveyor-General left Parramatta to travel by easy stages to Buree, where they were to be overtaken by their leader. The list of the members is a long one. We who live in the days of well-equipped small parties, composed of reliable, experienced men only, would feel considerably handicapped with such a retinue. In addition to Major Mitchell, Richard Cunningham, botanist (brother to Allan Cunningham), and Mr. Larmer, assistant surveyor, there were twenty-one men; carpenters, bullock drivers, blacksmith, shoemaker, &c. While still on the outskirts of settlement, an unhappy fate overtook Cunningham, the botanist. Leaving the party, doubtless on some scientific quest, during the morning of the 17th of April, whilst they were pushing over a dry stage to the Bogan River, he lost his way, and was never seen again. A long and painful search was immediately instituted for the missing man, but unfortunately, through some accident, his tracks were overlooked on the third day, and it was not until the 23rd of the month that the footsteps were found. Mr. Larmer and three men were sent with an ample supply of provisions to follow the tracks until they found Cunningham, alive or dead. Three days later they returned, having found the horse he had ridden, dead, with the saddle and bridle still on. Mitchell returned to the search once more; the lost man's trail was again picked up, and he was tracked to the Bogan River. They there met with some blacks who had seen the white man's track in the bed of the river, and made the searchers understand that he had gone to the west with the "Myall" [Wild blacks who had not visited the settlements.] blackfellows. All hope of finding him alive was now almost abandoned, but the pursuit was continued until May 5th, when the men brought back tidings that they had followed his tracks to where it disappeared near some recent fires where many natives had been encamped. Close to one of these fires they found a portion of the skirt or selvage of Cunningham's coat, numerous small fragments of his map of the colony, and, in the hollow of a tree, some yellow printed paper in which he used to carry the map. His fate was afterwards ascertained from the blacks. [ See Appendix.] As is unfortunately so usual in these cases, Cunningham had, by wandering in eccentric and contradictory courses, accelerated his fate, by rendering the work of the tracking party so much more tedious and difficult. Had he, on finding how absolutely he was astray, remained at the first water he reached, he would have been found.