inhabitants of this desolate region--over which there seems to brood
an unutterable stillness and a dread repose--we struck into sandhill
country, rather open, covered with the triodia or spinifex, and
timbered with the casuarina or black oak trees. We had scarcely gone
two miles when our old thunderstorm came upon us--it had evidently
missed us at first, and had now come to look for us--and it rained
heavily. The country was so sandy and porous that no water remained on
the surface. We travelled on and the storm travelled with us--the
ground sucking up every drop that fell. Continuing our course, which
was north 67 degrees west, we travelled twenty-five miles. At this
distance we came in sight of the mountains I was steering for, but
they were too distant to reach before night, so, turning a little
northward to the foot of a low, bare, white granite hill, I hoped to
find a creek, or at least some ledges in the rocks, where we might get
some water. Not a drop was to be found. Though we had been travelling
in the rain all day and accomplished thirty miles, we were obliged to
camp without water at last. There was good feed for the horses, and,
as it was still raining, they could not be very greatly in want of
water. We fixed up our tent and retired for the night, the wind
blowing furiously, as might reasonably be expected, for it was the eve
of the vernal equinox, and this I supposed was our share of the
equinoctial gales. We were compelled in the morning to remove the
camp, as we had not a drop of water, and unless it descended in sheets
the country could not hold it, being all pure red sand. The hill near
us had no rocky ledges to catch water, so we made off for the higher
mountains for which we were steering yesterday. Their nearest or most
eastern point was not more than four miles away, and we went first to
it. I walked on ahead of the horses with the shovel, to a small gully
I saw with the glasses, having some few eucalypts growing in it. I
walked up it, to and over rocky ledges, down which at times, no doubt,