ed.
Scarcity of living things.
And of water.
Continued plague of flies.
A pretty view.
Tributaries join.
Nicholls's Fish ponds.
Characteristics of watering places.
Red hill.
Another spring.
Unvarying scene.
Frost, thermometer 28 degrees.
A bluff hill.
Gibson's Desert again.
Remarks upon the Ashburton.
The desert's edge.
Barren and wretched region.
Low ridges and spinifex.
Deep native well.
Thermometer 18 degrees.
Salt bush and Acacia flats.
A rocky cleft.
Sandhills in sight.
Enter the desert.
The solitary caravan.
Severe ridges of sand.
Camels poisoned in the night.
In doubt, and resolved.
Water by digging.
More camels attacked.
A horrible and poisonous region.
Variable weather.
Thick ice.
A deadly Upas-tree.

Though the camels returned early from where the water was found, some
of them required a rest on the soft ground on the banks of the creek,
and as there were good bushes here also, we remained for the rest of
the day. The night set in very close and oppressive, and a slight rain
fell. On the morning of May the 8th there was some appearance of more
rain, and as we were camped upon ground liable to be flooded, I
decided to be off at once to some higher ground, which we reached in
about two miles down the creek. While we were packing up, and during
the time we were travelling, the rain came down sufficiently heavily
to wet us all thoroughly. We got to the side of a stony hill, put up
our tents and tarpaulins, and then enjoyed the rain exceedingly,
except that our senses of enjoyment were somewhat blunted, for all of
us had been attacked with ophthalmia for several days previously.
Livingstone remarks in one of his works that, in Africa, attacks of
ophthalmia generally precede rain. The rain fell occasionally
throughout the remainder of the day and during the night. "All night
long, in fitful pauses, falling far, but faint and fine." By the next
morning it had flooded the small lateral channels; this, however,
caused a very slight trickling down the channel of the larger creek.
The following day was windy and cloudy, but no more rain fell; about
an inch and a half had fallen altogether. We remained in camp to-day,
and dried all our things. The position of the camp was in latitude 24
degrees 12' 8" and longitude about 118 degrees 20'.

(ILLUSTRATION: GLEN ROSS.)

On the 10th of May we left, still following our creek about
east-north-east. We have had, a line of hills to the north of us for
som