re seen ahead, but no view could be got
of any horizon to the west; only the northern and eastern ones being
open to our view. The country surrounding the range to the north
appeared to consist of open red sandhills, with casuarina in the
hollows between. At sixteen miles I found a large rocky tarn in a
creek-gorge; but little or no grass for the horses--indeed, the whole
country at the foot of this range is very bare of that commodity,
except at Sladen Water, where it is excellent.

Since we left Sladen Water the horses have not done well, and the
slopes of this range being so rough and stony, many of them display
signs of sorefootedness. I cannot expect the range to continue farther
than another day's stage; and though I cannot see its end, yet I feel
'tis near.

Many delays by visiting places caused it to be very late when we sat
down amongst stones and triodia to devour our frugal supper. A
solitary eagle was the monarch of this scene; it was perched upon the
highest peak of a bare ridge, and formed a feathery sky-line when
looking up the gorge--always there sat the solemn, solitary, and
silent bird, like the Lorelei on her rock-- above--beautifully, there,
as though he had a mission to watch the course of passing events, and
to record them in the books of time and fate. There was a larger and
semicircular basin still farther up the gorge; this I called the
Circus, but this creek and our rock-hole ever after went by the name
of the Circus. In a few miles the next day I could see the termination
of the range. In nine miles we crossed three creeks, then ascended a
hill north of us, and obtained at last a western view. It consisted
entirely of high, red sandhills with casuarinas and low mallee, which
formed the horizon at about ten miles. The long range that had brought
us so far to the west was at an end; it had fallen off slightly in
altitude towards its western extremity, and a deep bed of rolling
sandhill country, covered with desert vegetation, surrounded it on all
sides. Nearer to us, north-westerly, and stretching nearly to west,
lay the dry, irregular, and broken expanse of an ancient lake bed. On
riding over to it we found it very undefined, as patches of sandhills
occurred amongst low ridges of limestone, with bushes and a few low
trees all over the expanse. There were patches of dry, soda-like
particles, and the soil generally was a loose dust coloured earth.
Samphire bushes also grew in patches upon it, a