ed desert, for we were surrounded by
spinifex, and the first waves of the dreaded sandhills were in view.
The country was entirely open, and only a sandy undulation to the
eastward bounded the horizon. The desert had to be crossed, or at
least attempted, even if it had been 1000 miles in extent; I therefore
wasted no time in plunging into it, not delaying to encamp at this
last rocky reservoir. After watering our camels we made our way for
about four miles amongst the sandhills. As we passed by, I noticed a
solitary desert oak-tree, Casuarina decaisneana, and a number of the
Australian grass-trees, Xanthorrhoea. The country was almost destitute
of timber, except that upon the tops of the parallel lines of red
sandhills, which mostly ran in a north-east and south-west direction,
a few stunted specimens of the eucalypt, known as blood-wood or red
gum existed. This tree grows to magnificent proportions in Queensland,
and down the west coast from Fremantle, always in a watered region.
Heaven only knows how it ever got here, or how it could grow on the
tops of red sandhills. Having stopped to water our camels at the rocky
cleft, our first day's march into the desert was only eleven miles.
Our camp at night was in latitude 24 degrees 12' 22".

The next day all signs of rises, ridges, hills, or ranges, had
disappeared behind the sandhills of the western horizon, and the
solitary caravan was now launched into the desert, like a ship upon
the ocean, with nothing but Providence and our latitude to depend
upon, to enable us to reach the other side.

The following morning, Sunday, the 4th June, was remarkably warm, the
thermometer not having descended during the night to less than 60
degrees, though only two mornings ago it was down to 18 degrees. I now
travelled so as gradually to reach the 24th parallel, in hopes some
lines of hills or ranges might be discovered near it. Our course was
east by north. We had many severe ridges of sand to cross, and this
made our rate of travelling very slow. We saw one desert oak-tree and
a few currajong-trees of the order of Sterculias, some grass-trees,
quandong, or native peach, Fusanus, a kind of sandal-wood, and the red
gum or blood-wood-trees; the latter always grows upon ground as high
as it can get, and therefore ornaments the tops of the sandhills,
while all the first-named trees frequent the lower ground between
them. To-day we only made good twenty miles, though we travelled until
dar