uch a region as this. I hesitated for the rest of the day--whether
to go still farther west in search of water, or to return at once and
risk the bringing of the whole party here. Tietkens and Young, I
reflected, have found a new depot, and perhaps removed the whole party
to it. Then, again, they might not, but have had to retreat to
Youldeh. Eventually I decided to go on a few miles more to the west,
in order to see whether the character of the country was in any way
altered before I returned to the depot.

We went about forty miles beyond the dam; the only alteration in the
country consisted of a return to the salt-lake system that had ceased
for so many miles prior to our reaching our little dam. At the
furthest point we reached, 195 miles from the depot; it was upon the
shore of another salt lake, no water of any kind was to be procured.
The only horizon to be seen was about fifteen miles away, and was
simply the rim of an undulation in the dreary scrubs covered with the
usual timber--that is to say, a mixture of the Eucalyptus dumosa or
mallee, casuarinas or black oaks, a few Grevilleas, hakea bushes, with
leguminous trees and shrubs, such as mulga, and a kind of harsh-,
silver wattle, looking bush. On the latter order of these trees and
plants the camels find their sustenance. Two stunted specimens of the
native orange-tree or capparis were seen where I had left the two
casks. From my furthest point west, in latitude 29 degrees 15' and
longitude 128 degrees 3' 30", I returned to the dam and found that
even during my short absence of only three and a half days the
diminution of the volume of water in it was amazing, and I was
perfectly staggered at the decrease, which was at the rate of more
than an inch per day. The dimensions of this singular little dam were
very small: the depth was its most satisfactory feature. It was, as
all native watering places are, funnel-shaped, and to the bottom of
the funnel I could poke a stick about three feet, but a good deal of
that depth was mud; the surface was not more than eight feet long, by
three feet wide, its shape was elliptical; it was not full when we
first saw it, having shrunk at least three feet from its highest
water-mark. I now decided to return by a new and more southerly route
to the depot, hoping to find some other waters on the way. At this dam
we were 160 miles from Eucla Harbour, which I visited last February
with my black boy Tommy and the three horses lost i