August 11th to 15th we rested at the cave, occupying ourselves in the numerous odd jobs that are always to be found, happy in the knowledge that we had an unfailing supply of water beneath us.  I have little doubt but that this water is permanent, and do not hesitate to call it a spring.  I know well that previous travellers have called places “springs” which in after years have been found dry; but I feel sure that this supply so far, nearly sixty feet, below the surface, must be derived from a permanent source, and even in the hottest season is too well protected to be in any way decreased by evaporation.

As a humble tribute to the world-wide rejoicings over the long reign of our Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, I have honoured this hidden well of water by the name of “The Empress Spring.”  A more appropriate name it could not have, for is it not in the Great Victoria Desert? and was it not in that region that another party was saved by the happy finding of Queen Victoria Spring?

The “Empress Spring” would be a hard spot to find.  What landmarks there are I will now describe.  My position for the Spring is lat. 26 degrees 47 minutes 21 seconds S., long. 124 degrees 25 minutes E. Its probable native name (I say probable because one can never be sure of words taken from a wild aboriginal, who, though pointing out a water, may, instead of repeating its name, be perhaps describing its size or shape) is “Murcoolia Ayah Teenyah.”  The entrance is in a low outcrop of magnesian limestone, surrounded by buckbush, a few low quondongs and a low, broom-like shrub; beyond this, mulga scrub.  Immediately to the North of the outcrop runs a high sand-ridge, covered sparsely with acacia and spinifex.  On the top of the ridge are three conspicuously tall dead mulga trees.  From the ridge looking West, North, North-East, and East nothing is visible but parallel sand-ridges running N.E.  To the South-West can be seen the high ground on which is the rock-hole (Mulundella).

To the South-East, across a mulga-covered flat, is a high ridge one mile distant, with the crests of others visible beyond it; above them, about twelve miles distant, a prominent bluff (Breaden Bluff), the North end of a red tableland.  From the mulga trees the bluff bears 144 degrees.  One and a half miles N.E. by N. from the cave is a valley of open spinifex, breaking through the ridges in a West and Southerly direction, on which are clumps of cork-bark trees; these would incline one to think that water cannot be far below the surface in this spot.

Close to the entrance to the cave is erected a mulga pole, on which we carved our initials and the date.  There are also some native signs or ornaments in the form of three small pyramids of stones and grass, about eight feet apart, in a line pointing S.W.