Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
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This Time I Intended To Return To The Ridges We Had Last
Left, And Which Now Bore A Little To The West Of South-West,
Twenty-One Miles Away.
We made a detour so as to inspect some other
ridges near where we had been last.
Stony and low ridgy ground was
first met, but the scrubs were all around. At fifteen miles we came
upon a little firm clayey plain with some salt bushes, and it also had
upon it some clay pans, but they had long been dry. We found the
northern face of the ridges just as waterless as the southern, which
we had previously searched. The far hills or ridges to the west, which
I now intended to visit, bore nearly west. Another salt bush plain was
next crossed; this was nearly three miles long. We now gave the horses
an hour's spell, the thermometer showing 102 degrees in the shade;
then, re-saddling, we went on, and it was nine o'clock at night when
we found ourselves under the shadows of the hills we had steered for,
having them on the north of us.
I searched in the dark, but could find no feature likely to supply us
with water; we had to encamp in a nest of triodia without any water,
having travelled forty-eight miles through the usual kind of country
that occupies this region's space. At daylight the thermometer
registered 70 degrees, that being the lowest during the night. On
ascending the hill above us, there was but one feature to gaze
upon - the lake still stretching away, not only in undiminished, but
evidently increasing size, towards the west and north-west.
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