Not Seeing Any Possibility Of Pushing South, And Thinking After All It Might Not Be So Far Round The Lake To The West, I Turned To Where We Had Struck The First Salt Channel, And Resolved To Try What A More Westerly Line Would Produce.

The channel in question was now some fifteen miles away to the north-westward, and by the time we

Got back there the day was done and "the darkness had fallen from the wings of night." We had travelled nearly fifty miles, the horses were almost dead; the thermometer stood at 100 degrees in the shade when we rested under the quandongs. In the night blankets were unendurable. Had there been any food for them the horses could not eat for thirst, and were too much fatigued by yesterday's toil to go out of sight of our camping place. We followed along the course of the lake north of west for seven miles, when we were checked by a salt arm running north-eastwards; this we could not cross until we had gone up it a distance of three miles. Then we made for some low ridges lying west-south-west and reached them in twelve miles. There was neither watercourse, channel, nor rock-holes; we wandered for several miles round the ridges, looking for water, but without success, and got back on our morning's tracks when we had travelled thirty miles. From the top of these ridges the lake could be seen stretching away to the west or west-south-west in vast proportions, having several salt arms running back from it at various distances.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 153 of 753
Words from 41132 to 41402 of 204780