I Called The High Hill Mount Buttfield.

It appeared as if no rain had fallen here lately; the water in all these holes was greenish and stagnant, or stagning as Gibson and Jimmy called it.

The grass, such as there was, was old, white, and dry. The country down below, north-wards, consisted of open, sandy, level, triodia ground, dotted with a few clumps of the desert oak, giving a most pleasing appearance to the eye, but its reality is startlingly different, keeping, as it were, the word of promise to the eye, but breaking it to the hope. While the horses were being collected this morning I ascended Mount Buttfield, and found that ranges continued to the west for a considerable distance. I now decided to make for a notch or fall in the main range we had left, which now bore nearly west, as there appeared to be a creek issuing from the hills there. Travelling over casuarina sandhills and some level triodia ground, we found there was a creek with eucalypts on it, but it was quite evident that none of the late showers had fallen there. Hardly any grass was to be found, the ground being open and stony, with thorny vegetation.

In the main channel we could only find deep, rocky, dry basins, but up a small branch gorge I found three small basins with a very limited supply of water, not sufficient for my horses both now and in the morning, so we thought it better that they should do without it to-night. Above the camp there was a kind of pound, so we put all the horses up there, as it was useless to let them ramble all over the country in the night. The ants were excessively troublesome here. I could not find sufficient shade for the thermometer to-day, but kept it as cool as I could for fear of its bursting.

This glen, or rather the vegetation which had existed in it, had been recently burned by the natives, and it had in consequence a still more gloomy and dreary appearance. I called it by its proper name, that is to say, Desolation Glen.

I could get no rest last night on account of the ants, the wretches almost ate me alive, and the horses tried so often to pass by the camp that I was delighted at the reappearance of the morn. Mr. Tietkens also had to shift his camp, and drove the horses back, but ants as big as elephants, or an earthquake that would destroy the world, would never wake Gibson and Jimmy. It was difficult to get the horses to the place where the water was, and we could only manage three at a time. There was fortunately just enough water, though none to spare. One old fool of a horse must needs jump into an empty rock basin; it was deep and funnel shaped, so that he could not stand when he got there, so he fell, and had knocked himself about terribly before we could get him out.

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