but whether its sources are in those hills, or that it still runs on
somewhere to the north of us, is the question which I now hope to
solve. I am the more anxious to rediscover the Finke, if it still
exists, because water has been by no means plentiful on the route
along which I have lately been travelling; and I believe a better
country exists upon the other side of the mountains.

At starting, Carmichael and I at first walked across the plain, we
being encamped upon its southern end. It was beautifully grassed, and
had good soil, and it would make an excellent racecourse, or ground
for a kangaroo hunt. We saw numbers of kangaroos, and emus too, but
could get no shots at them. In three miles the plain ended in thick,
indeed very dense, scrub, which continued to the foot of the hills; in
it the grass was long, dry, and tangled with dead and dry burnt sticks
and timber, making it exceedingly difficult to walk through. Reaching
the foot of the hills, I found the natives had recently burnt all the
vegetation from their sides, leaving the stones, of which it was
composed, perfectly bare. It was a long distance to the top of the
first ridge, but the incline was easy, and I was in great hopes, if it
continued so, to be able to get the horses over the mountains at this
spot. Upon arriving at the top of the slope, I was, however,
undeceived upon that score, for we found the high mount, for which we
were steering, completely separated from us by a yawning chasm, which
lay, under an almost sheer precipice, at our feet. The high mountain
beyond, near the crown, was girt around by a solid wall of rock, fifty
or sixty feet in height, from the edge of which the summit rose. It
was quite unapproachable, except, perhaps, in one place, round to the
northward.

The solid rock of which it had formerly been composed had, by some