t our tarpaulins erected, though no more fell. In the morning
there was sultriness in the air though the sky was clear; the
thermometer stood at 52 degrees, and at sunrise a smoky haze pervaded
the whole sky. Whilst we were packing up the horses this morning, the
same two natives whom we saw last night, again made their appearance,
bringing with them a third, who was painted, feathered, greased, and
red-ochred, in, as they doubtless thought, the most alarming manner. I
had just mounted my horse, and rode towards them, thinking to get some
more information from the warrior as to the course of the creek, etc.,
but when they saw the horse approaching they scampered off, and the
bedizened warrior projected himself into the friendly branches of the
nearest tree with the most astonishing velocity. Perceiving that it
was useless to try to approach them, without actually running them to
earth, we left them; and crossing the river easily over its stony bed,
we continued north-west towards a mountain in the ranges that
traversed the horizon in that direction. The river appeared to come
from the same spot. A breeze from the north-west caused the dust
raised by the pack-horses, which we drove in a mob before us,
travelling upon the loose soil where the spinifex had all been lately
burnt, to blow directly in our faces. At five miles we struck on a
bend of a river, and we saw great volumes of smoke from burning grass
and triodia rising in all directions. The natives find it easier to
catch game when the ground is bare, or covered only with a short
vegetation, than when it is clothed with thick coarse grasses or
pungent shrubs. A tributary from the north, or east of north, joined
the Finke on this course, but it was destitute of water at the
junction. Soon now the river swept round to the westward, along the
foot of the hills we were approaching. Here a tributary from the west
joined, having a slender stream of water running along its bed. It was
exceedingly boggy, and we had to pass up along it for over two miles
before we could find a place to cross to enable us to reach the main
stream, now to the north of us. I called this McMinn's Creek.

On reaching the Finke we encamped. In the evening I ascended a
mountain to the north-westward of us. It was very rough, stony, and
precipitous, and composed of red sandstone; its summit was some 800
feet above our camp. It had little other vegetation upon it than huge
plots of triodia, of the mo