find a more
northerly route to the west. Leaving Gibson and Jimmy behind, we took
three horses and steered away for the north. Our route on this trip
led us into the most miserable country, dry ridges and spinifex,
sandhills and scrubs, which rolled along in undulations of several
miles apart. We could get no water, and camped after a day's journey
of forty miles.

Though the day had been very hot, the night became suddenly cool. In
the morning of the 28th of October, at five miles we arrived at a
scrubby sand ridge, and obtained a most displeasing view of the
country further north. The surface seemed more depressed, but entirely
filled up with dense scrubs, with another ridge similar to the one we
were on bounding the view; we reached it in about eight miles. The
view we then got was precisely similar to that behind us, except that
the next undulation that bounded the horizon was fifteen to eighteen
miles away. We had now come fifty-one miles from the Shoeing Camp;
there was no probability of getting water in such a region. To the
west the horizon was bounded by what appeared a perfectly flat and
level line running northwards. This flat line to the west seemed not
more than twenty-five to thirty miles away; between us and it were a
few low stony hills. Not liking the northern, I now decided to push
over to the western horizon, which looked so flat. I have said there
were some stony hills in that direction; we reached the first in
twenty miles. The next was formed of nearly bare rock, where there
were some old native gunyahs. Searching about we found another of
those extraordinary basins, holes, or cups washed out of the solid
rock by ancient ocean's force, ages before an all-seeing Providence
placed His dusky children upon this scene, or even before the waters
had sufficiently subsided to permit either animal or man to exist
here. From this singular cup we obtained a sufficient supply of that
fluid so terribly scarce in this region. We had to fill a canvas
bucket with a pint pot to water our horses, and we outspanned for the
remainder of the day at this exceedingly welcome spot. There were a
few hundred acres of excellent grass land, and the horses did
remarkably well during the night. The day had been very hot; the
thermometer in the shade at this rock stood at 106 degrees.

This proved a most abominable camp; it swarmed with ants, and they
kept biting us so continually, that we were in a state of perpetual
motion