articularly to enable another cow to
calve. During this interval of repose we had continued oppressive
weather, the thermometer standing from 92 and 94 to 96 degrees every
afternoon, but the nights were agreeably cool, if not cold. We had
generally very cloudy mornings; the flies were particularly numerous
and troublesome, and I became convinced that any further travel to the
west would have to be carried on under very unfavourable
circumstances. This little dam was situated in latitude 29 degrees 19'
4", and longitude 128 degrees 38' 16", showing that we had crossed the
boundary line between the two colonies of South and Western Australia,
the 129th meridian. I therefore called this the Boundary Dam. It must
be recollected that we are and have been for 7 1/2 degrees of
longitude--that is to say, for 450 miles of westing, and 130 miles of
northing--occupying the intervening period between the 9th of June, to
the 3rd of September, entirely enveloped in dense scrubs, and I may
say that very few if any explorers have ever before had such a region
to traverse. I had managed to penetrate this country up to the present
point, and it was not to be wondered at if we all ardently longed for
a change. Even a bare, boundless expanse of desert sand would be
welcomed as an alternative to the dark and dreary scrubs that
surrounded us. However, it appeared evident to me, as I had traversed
nothing but scrubs for hundreds of miles from the east, and had found
no water of any size whatever in all the distance I had yet come, that
no waters really existed in this country, except an occasional native
well or native dam, and those only at considerable distances apart.
Concluding this to be the case, and my object being that the
expedition should reach the city of Perth, I decided there was only
one way to accomplish this--namely, to go thither, at any risk, and
trust to Providence for an occasional supply of water here and there
in the intermediate distance. I desired to make for a hill or mountain
called Mount Churchman by Augustus Churchman Gregory in 1846. I had no
written record of water existing there, but my chart showed that Mount
Churchman had been visited by two or three other travellers since that
date, and it was presumable that water did permanently exist there.
The hill was, however, distant from this dam considerably over 600
miles in a straight line, and too far away for it to be possible we
could reach it unless we should di