nearly all the time we were there. A few heat-drops of rain
fell. I was not sorry to leave the wretched place, which we left as
dry as the surrounding void. We continued our west course over
sandhills and through scrub and spinifex. The low ridges of which the
western horizon was formed, and which had formerly looked perfectly
flat, was reached in five miles; no other view could be got. A mile
off was a slightly higher point, to which we went; then the horizon,
both north and west of the same nature, ran on as far as could be
seen, without any other object upon which to rest the eye. There were
a few little gullies about, which we wasted an hour amongst in a
fruitless search for water. The Bitter Water Creek now lay south of
us; I was not at all satisfied at our retreat from it. I was anxious
to find out where it went, for though we had spent several days in its
neighbourhood, we had not travelled more than eight or ten miles down
it; we might still get a bucket or two of water for our three horses
where I had killed the little cob. We therefore turned south in hopes
that we might get some satisfaction out of that region at last. We
were now, however, thirty-nine or forty miles from the water-place,
and two more from the Cob. I was most anxious on account of the water
at the Shoeing Camp; it might have become quite exhausted by this
time, and where on earth would Gibson and Jimmy go? The thermometer
again to-day stood at 106 degrees in the shade.

It was late at night when we reached the Cob tank, and all the water
that had accumulated since we left was scarcely a bucketful.

Though the sky was quite overcast, and rain threatened to fall nearly
all night, yet none whatever came. The three horses were huddled up
round the perfectly empty tank, having probably stood there all night.
I determined to try down the creek. One or two small branches enlarged
the channel; and in six or seven miles we saw an old native well,
which we scratched out with our hands; but it was perfectly dry. At
twelve miles another creek joined from some hills easterly, and
immediately below the junction the bed was filled with green rushes.
The shovel was at the Shoeing Camp, the bed was too stony to be dug
into with our hands. Below this again another and larger creek joined
from the east, or rather our creek ran into it. There were some large
holes in the new bed, but all were dry. We now followed up this new
channel eastwards, as our horses we