I Went On Our Old Tracks As Far As They Went, Then I Visited Some Other Hills On My Line Of March.

As usual, the country alternated between open stones at the foot of the hills and dense scrubs beyond.

I thought one of the beds of scrubs I got into the densest I had ever seen, it was actually impenetrable without cutting one's way, and I had to turn around and about in all directions. I had the greatest difficulty to get the horse I was leading to come on at all; I had no power over him whatever. I could not use either a whip or a stick, and he dragged so much that he nearly pulled me out of my saddle, so that I could hardly tell which way I was going, and it was extremely difficult to keep anything like a straight course. Night overtook me, and I had to encamp in the scrubs, having travelled nearly forty miles. A few drops of rain fell; it may have benefited the horses, but to me it was a nuisance. I was up, off my sandy couch early enough, but had to wait for daylight before I could get the horses; they had wandered away for miles back towards the camp, and I had the same difficulties over again when getting them back to where the saddles were. In seven or eight miles after starting I got out of the scrubs. At the foot of the mountain for which I was steering there was a little creek or gully, with some eucalypts where I struck it. It was, as all the others had been, scrubby, rocky, and dry. I left the horses and ascended to the top, about 900 feet above the scrubs which surrounded it. The horizon was broken by low ranges nearly all round, but scrubs as usual intervened between them. I descended and walked into dozens of gullies and rocky places, and I found some small holes and basins, but all were dry. At this spot I was eighty miles from a sufficient supply of water; that at the camp, forty-five miles away, may be gone by the time I return. Under these circumstances I could not go any farther west. It was now evening again. I left these desolate hills, the Ehrenberg Ranges of my map, and travelled upon a different line, hoping to find a better or less thick route through the scrubs, but it was just the same, and altogether abominable. Night again overtook me in the direful scrubs, not very far from the place at which I had slept the previous night; the most of the day was wasted in an ineffectual search for water.

On Sunday morning, the 29th September, having hobbled my horses so short, although the scrubs were so thick, they were actually in sight at dawn; I might as well have tied them up. Starting at once, I travelled to one or two hills we had passed by, but had not inspected before.

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