ching the
first, we ascended it, and I could see at a glance that any prospect
of finding water was utterly hopeless, as these low ridges, which ran
north and south, were merely a few oblique-lying layers of upheaved
granite, not much higher than the sandhills which surrounded them, and
there was no place where water could lodge even during rains. Not a
rise could be seen in any direction, except, of course, from where we
had come. We went on west five or six miles farther to the end of
these, just about sundown: and long, indeed, will that peculiar sunset
rest in my recollection. The sun as usual was a huge and glaring ball
of fire that with his last beams shot hot and angry glances of hate at
us, in rage at our defiance of his might. It was so strange and so
singular that only at this particular sunset, out of the millions
which have elapsed since this terrestrial ball first floated in ether,
that I, or indeed any White man, should stand upon this wretched hill,
so remote from the busy haunts of my fellow men. My speculations upon
the summit, if, indeed, so insignificant a mound can be said to have a
summit, were as wild and as incongruous as the regions which stretched
out before me. In the first place I could only conclude that no water
could exist in this region, at least as far as the sand beds extend. I
was now, though of course some distance to the south also, about
thirty miles to the west of the most western portion of the Rawlinson
Range.

From that range no object had been visible above the sandhills in any
westerly direction, except these ridges I am now upon, and from these,
if any other ranges or hills anywhere within a hundred miles of the
Rawlinson existed, I must have sighted them. The inference to be drawn
in such a case was, that in all probability this kind of country would
remain unaltered for an enormous distance, possibly to the very banks
of the Murchison River itself. The question very naturally arose,
Could the country be penetrated by man, with only horses at his
command, particularly at such a heated time of year? Oh, would that I
had camels! What are horses in such a region and such a heated
temperature as this? The animals are not physically capable of
enduring the terrors of this country. I was now scarcely a hundred
miles from the camp, and the horses had plenty of water up to nearly
halfway, but now they looked utterly unable to return. What a strange
maze of imagination the mind can w