filled more than half of the horizon. Not an object was
visible on which to steer, yet we held on our course by compass like a
ship at sea.

"Poor Browne was in excruciating pain from scurvy. Every day I expected
to find him unable to stir. My men were ill from exposure, scanty food,
and muddy water; my horses leg-weary and reduced to skeletons. I alone
stood unscathed, but I could not bear to leave my companion in that
heartless desert.

"Finding myself baffled to the north and to the west, seeing no hope of
rain, realizing that my retreat was too probably already cut off, I
reluctantly turned back to the depot, 443 miles distant, and only
through the help of Providence did we at length reach it."

Sturt, as he mounted to begin his retreat, was nearly induced to turn
again by "a flock of paroquets that flew shrieking from the north
towards Eyre's Creek. They proved that to the last we had followed with
unerring precision the line of migration."

SCOPE AND RESULTS OF CENTRAL EXPEDITION AS SUMMED UP BY STURT

My instructions directed me to gain the meridian of Mount Arden or that
of 138 deg., with a view to determine whether there were any chain of
mountains connected with the high lands seen by Mr. Eyre to the westward
of Lake Torrens, and running into the interior from south-west to
north-east. I was ordered to push to the westward and to make the south
the constant base of my operations. I was prohibited from descending to
the north-coast, but it was left optional with me to fall back on
Moreton Bay if I should be forced to the eastward. Whether I performed
the task thus assigned to me or wavered in the accomplishment of it;
whether I fell short of my duty, or yielded only to insuperable
difficulties, the world will be enabled to judge. That I found no fine
country is to be regretted; however, I was not sent to find a fine
country, but to solve a geographical problem. I trust I am not
presumptuous in saying that, from a geographical point of view, the
results of this expedition have been complete. If I did not gain the
heart of the continent, no one will refuse me the credit of having taken
a direct course for it. My distance from that hitherto mysterious spot
was less than 150 miles. In ten days I should have reached the goal; and
that task would have been accomplished had rain fallen when I was at my
farthest north. Had I found such a river as the Victoria, I would have
clung to it to the last; but those a