able certainty that instead of going prospecting to the Escape River or collecting for the Queensland Museum as he proposes to do, hit stake will go in the first few bars after we pay off and he will be on the beach again. I have no doubt that he has a bottle somewhere in his swag now and will not get on an even keel again until that has gone. Being left to his own devices this evening while preparing supper (the rest of us were busy unpacking collecting gear) it was found that he had opened every case of provisions we had brought with us in a search for some salt. I found it later in the case which he had opened third, of the dozen or more that we had. In referring to the Commercial Hotel, Cooktown, I remember that I have not attempted any kind of description of the place or the town. The town fits somewhere between Laura and Cairns and at one time had a population of several thousands, most of them being Chinese who had followed one of the gold rushes. At that time Cooktown was still basking in the fact that Captain Cook had tied his ship, the Endeavour, to a tree on the side of the river, named after the ship, to careen her. The tree is still there and a monument tells of the tree's place in history. That all took place before Cook had claimed Australia for the British Crown, which he did some weeks after the Cooktown episode, at a place off Cape York tip named Possession Island. It is an historical fact that Cook did not know he was on a small island when he planted the flag and claimed possession of the whole continent, on which he thought he was. But to get back to Cooktown, it lost its prominence and most of its population when the miners and stockmen further north ceased sending their shipments out through Cooktown and instead used a road which was constructed to a point a lesses distance away. Now the place has sunk to a population of a few hundreds, mostly elderly, and is getting smaller and smaller every year; at present it has the status about of a frontier town but is on the down rather than the up grade. The hotel, the Commercial being one of three, is a barn-like, ramshackle place and cannot possibly be paying its way; neither can the other two as each of them must have a certain payroll and rarely do the number of guests exceed the number of employees. In the case of a visit of such a party as ours, six whites and three blacks, there is great joy and our departure is deplored. Len said this morning that he heard the line in the grocery store, where I had just placed our order for supplies for the coming three or four weeks, remark "If only we got an order like this every day, there would be some use in having a store in Cooktown." It struck me as very odd this morning when riding our on the truck, that it seemed so normal and natural and the two days in the hotel so strange and unusual. It is rather shocking that civilization can wear off so quickly and the bush existence take such strong hold in such a short time. It will be well, I think, to get back and start to follow manners and customs again for a while. Friday, 3 September 1943. It was down to 53 degrees last night and all hands felt it a bit, particularly the boys; Moretom was around early asking for "rubbing medicine" which, unfortunately we do not have. I have spent most of the day in getting books and so on up to date. I have not done so since June 10th and there was quite a lot of stuff to be done. It is finished now, however. Len and George went out with two of the blacks to examine the trail to the top of Finnegan and so far not much collecting has been done. I think we shall all be able to make a good start on it tomorrow unless there is trail-cutting to be done.