times it was so bitter
as to be quite unpalatable. That on which we subsisted was scraped up
from small puddles, heated by the sun's rays; and so uncertain were we
of finding water at the end of the day's journey, that we were obliged
to carry a supply on one of the bullocks. There was scarcely a living
creature, even of the feathered race, to be seen to break the stillness
of the forest. The native dogs alone wandered about, though they had
scarcely strength to avoid us; and their melancholy howl, breaking in
upon the ear at the dead of the night, only served to impress more
fully on the mind the absolute loneliness of the desert.

It appeared, from their traces that the natives had lingered on this
ground, on which they had perhaps been born, as long as it continued to
afford them a scanty though precarious subsistence; but that they had
at length been forced from it. Neither fish nor muscles remained in the
creek, nor emus nor kangaroos on the plains. How then could an European
expect to find food in deserts through which the savage wandered in
vain? There is no doubt of the fate that would have overtaken any one
of the party who might have strayed away, and I was happy to find that
Norman's narrow escape had made a due impression on the minds of his
comrades.

SANDY PLAINS; LEAVE THE CREEK.

We passed some considerable plains, lying to the eastward of the creek,
on parts of which the grass, though growing in tufts, was of luxuriant
growth. They were, however, more generally covered with salsola and
rhagodia, and totally destitute of other vegetation, the soil upon them
being a red sandy loam. The paths across the plains, which varied in
breadth from three to eight miles, were numerous; but they had not been
recently trodden. The creek continued to have a thick brush of
casuarina and acacia near it, to the westward of which there was a
rising open forest track; the timber upon it being chiefly box,
cypress, and the acacia longifolia. It was most probably connected with
New Year's Range, those elevations being about thirty miles distant. It
terminated in some gentle hills which, though covered in places with
acacia shrub, were sufficiently open to afford an extensive view. From
their summit Oxley's Table Land, towards which we had been gradually
working our way, was distinctly visible, distant about twenty miles,
and bearing by compass W. by S. On descending from these hills (called
the Pink Hills, from the colour