on this west course for fifteen or
sixteen miles, having the southern hills very close to our line of
march. Having travelled some twenty miles, I turned up a blind gully
or water-channel in a small triodia valley, and found some water lying
about amongst the grass. The herbage here was splendid. Ants and burrs
were very annoying, however; we have been afflicted with both of these
animal and vegetable annoyances upon many occasions all through these
regions. There was a high, black-looking mountain with a conical
summit, in the northern line of ranges, which bore north-westward from
here. I named it Mount Aloysius, after the Christian name of Sir A.F.
Weld, Governor of Western Australia. We had entered the territory of
the Colony of Western Australia on the last day of September; the
boundary between it and South Australia being the 129th meridian of
east longitude. The latitude by stars of this camp was 26 degrees 9'.
Leaving it early, we continued upon the same line as yesterday, and
towards the same hill, which we reached in five miles, and ascended.
It was nearly the most westerly point of the line of hills we had been
following. The summit of this hill I found to consist of great masses
of rifted stone, which were either solid iron or stone coated thickly
with it. The blocks rang with the sound of my iron-shod boots, while
moving over them, with such a musical intonation and bell-like clang,
that I called this the Bell Rock. Mount Aloysius bore north 9 degrees
west, distant about ten miles; here I saw it was quite an isolated
range, as, at its eastern and western extremities, open spaces could
be seen between it and any other hills.

CHAPTER 2.4. FROM 30TH SEPTEMBER TO 9TH NOVEMBER, 1873.

Native encampment.
Fires alight.
Hogarth's Wells.
Mount Marie and Mount Jeanie.
Pointed ranges to the west.
Chop a passage.
Traces of volcanic action.
Highly magnetic hills.
The Leipoa ocellata.
Tapping pits.
Glen Osborne.
Cotton-bush flats.
Frowning bastion walls.
Fort Mueller.
A strong running stream.
Natives' smokes.
Gosse returning.
Limestone formation.
Native pheasants' nests.
Egg-carrying.
Mount Squires.
The Mus conditor's nest.
Difficulty with the horses.
A small creek and native well.
Steer for the west.
Night work.
Very desolate places.
A circular storm.
The Shoeing Camp.
A bare hill.
The Cups.
Fresh looking creek.
Brine and bitter water.
The desert pea.
Jimmy and the natives.
Natives prowling