- "To The Eastward Where, Cluster By Cluster, Dim Stars And Dull Planets That Muster, Waxing Wan In A World Of White Lustre, That Spread Far And High."

No human being could have been more pleased than I at the appearance of another day, although I was yet doomed to several hours more misery in this dreadful gorge.

The pigeons shot last night were covered within and without by ants, although they had been put in a bag. The horses looked wretched, even after watering, and I saw that it was actually necessary to give them a day's rest before I ventured with them into the frightful sandhills which I could see intervened between us and the distant ridges. Truly the hours I spent in this hideous gorge were hours of torture; the sun roasted us, for there was no shade whatever to creep into; the rocks and stones were so heated that we could neither touch, nor sit upon them, and the ants were more tormenting than ever. I almost cried aloud for the mountains to fall upon me, and the rocks to cover me. I passed several hours in the marble bath, the only place the ants could not encroach upon, though they swarmed round the edge of the water. But in the water itself were numerous little fiendish water-beetles, and these creatures bit one almost as badly as the ants. In the bath I remained until I was almost benumbed by the cold. Then the sunshine and the heat in the gorge would seem delightful for a few minutes, till I became baked with heat again. The thermometer stood at 106 degrees in the shade of the only tree. At three p.m. the horses came up to water. I was so horrified with the place I could no longer remain, though Jimmy sat, and probably slept, in the scanty one tree's shade, and seemed to pass the time as comfortably as though he were in a fine house. In going up to the water two of the horses again fell and hurt themselves, but the old blear-eyed mare never slipped or fell. At four p.m. we mounted, and rode down the glen until we got clear of the rough hills, when we turned upon our proper course for the ridges, which, however, we could not see. In two or three miles we entered the sandhill regions once more, when it soon rose into hills. The triodia was as thick and strong as it could grow. The country was not, so to say, scrubby, there being only low bushes and scrubs on the sandhills, and casuarina trees of beautiful outline and appearance in the hollows. When the horses got clear of the stones they began to eat everything they could snatch and bite at.

At fifteen miles from the gorge we encamped on a patch of dry grass. The horses fed pretty well for a time, until the old mare began to think it time to be off, and she soon would have led the others back to the range. She dreaded this country, and knew well by experience and instinct what agony was in store for her. Jimmy got them back and short-hobbled them. There were plenty of ants here, but nothing to be compared to the number in the gorge, and having to remove my blankets only three or four times, I had a most delightful night's rest, although, of course, I did not sleep. The horses were sulky and would not eat; therefore they looked as hollow as drums, and totally unfit to traverse the ground that was before them. However, this had to be done, or at least attempted, and we got away early. We were in the midst of the sandhills, and here they rose almost into mountains of sand. It was most fatiguing to the horses, the thermometer 104 degrees in the shade when we rested at twenty-two miles. Nor was this the hottest time of the day. We had been plunging through the sand mountains, and had not sighted the ridges, for thirty-seven miles, till at length we found the nearest were pretty close to us. They seemed very low, and quite unlikely to produce water. Reaching the first, we ascended it, and I could see at a glance that any prospect of finding water was utterly hopeless, as these low ridges, which ran north and south, were merely a few oblique-lying layers of upheaved granite, not much higher than the sandhills which surrounded them, and there was no place where water could lodge even during rains. Not a rise could be seen in any direction, except, of course, from where we had come. We went on west five or six miles farther to the end of these, just about sundown: and long, indeed, will that peculiar sunset rest in my recollection. The sun as usual was a huge and glaring ball of fire that with his last beams shot hot and angry glances of hate at us, in rage at our defiance of his might. It was so strange and so singular that only at this particular sunset, out of the millions which have elapsed since this terrestrial ball first floated in ether, that I, or indeed any White man, should stand upon this wretched hill, so remote from the busy haunts of my fellow men. My speculations upon the summit, if, indeed, so insignificant a mound can be said to have a summit, were as wild and as incongruous as the regions which stretched out before me. In the first place I could only conclude that no water could exist in this region, at least as far as the sand beds extend. I was now, though of course some distance to the south also, about thirty miles to the west of the most western portion of the Rawlinson Range.

From that range no object had been visible above the sandhills in any westerly direction, except these ridges I am now upon, and from these, if any other ranges or hills anywhere within a hundred miles of the Rawlinson existed, I must have sighted them.

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