This Was A Very Good, If Not Actually A Pretty, Encampment; There Was A Narrow Strip Of Open Ground Along The Banks, And Good Vegetation For The Horses.

We slept upon the sandy bed of the creek to escape the terrible quantities of burrs which grew all over these wilds.

We steered away nearly west for the highest hills we had seen yesterday; there appeared a fall or gap between two; the scrubs were very thick to-day, as was seen by the state of our pack-bags, an infallible test, when we stopped for the night, during the greater part of which we had to repair the bags. We could not find any water, and we seemed to be getting into very desolate places. A densely scrubby and stony gully was before us, which we had to get through or up, and on reaching the top I was disappointed to find that, though there was an open valley below, the hills all round seemed too much disconnected to form any good watering places. Descending, and leaving Gibson and Jimmy with the horses, Mr. Tietkens and I rode in different directions in search of water. In about two hours we met, in the only likely spot either of us had seen; this was a little watercourse, and following it up to the foot of the hills found a most welcome and unexpectedly large pond for such a place. Above it in the rocks were a line of little basins which contained water, with a rather pronounced odour of stagnation about it; above them again the water was running, but there was a space between upon which no water was seen. We returned for the horses and camped as near as we could find a convenient spot; this, however, was nearly a mile from the water. The valley ran north-east and south-west; it was very narrow, not too open, and there was but poor grass and herbage, the greater portion of the vegetation being spinifex. At eight o'clock at night a thunderstorm came over us from the west, and sprinkled us with a few drops of rain; from west the storm travelled north-west, thence north to east and south, performing a perfect circle around; reaching its original starting point in about an hour, it disappeared, going northerly again. The rest of the night was beautifully calm and clear. Some of our horses required shoeing for the first time since we had left the telegraph line, now over 600 miles behind us. From the top of a hill here the western horizon was bounded by low scrubby ridges, with an odd one standing higher than the rest; to one of these I decided to go next. Some other hills lay a little more to the south, but there was nothing to choose between them; hills also ran along eastward and north-eastwards. At eight o'clock again to-night a thunderstorm came up from the westward; it sprinkled us with a few drops of rain, and then became dispersed to the south and south-east.

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