ving been completely bare of trees.

BARREN COUNTRY.

I now halted for about an hour and a half to rest the wearied men, and
then again commenced our route over this barren waste. For the next
twelve miles we travelled down a gentle descent leading to a very deep
valley, and late in the evening reached some dried up swamps where we
made an ineffectual search for water; we however saw here some parakeets,
and I was lucky enough to kill one which was about the size of a thrush;
several of the men also got shots at these little birds, but without
success. As the day had been intensely hot and we had tasted no water
since morning we suffered a great deal from want of it, but were at
length compelled by darkness to lie down to rest without finding any.

DRY BED OF THE SMITH RIVER.

April 16.

We had not travelled above two miles this morning in an east-south-east
direction when I found that we had reached the bottom of the valley into
which we had yesterday evening commenced our descent. In this valley lay
the dried up bed of a considerable stream, which I have named the Smith
after my unfortunate friend. Its direction was from north-east to south.

LONG AND UTTER DESTITUTION OF FOOD AND WATER. SUFFERINGS FROM THIRST.

As we were now suffering a good deal from thirst we made a search in both
directions along the bed, but although there were many pools (some of
them being twelve or fourteen feet deep) we could not find the slightest
indication of water having stood in them for a considerable time: in the
bottom of one of the deepest of these pools was a native well, dug to the
depth of about seven feet, but even at this distance below the surface we
could see no signs whatever of water. There was much good land in the
valley through which this watercourse wound, but all was barren and arid.
In the course of the morning we had seen a flight of cockatoos coming
from the eastward down the valley in which the bed of the river lay,
which at the time made me imagine that water would be found in that
direction in the interior, and the natives subsequently stated that such
was the case, but our circumstances would not admit such a deviation from
our course in a search which if unsuccessful would have proved fatal.

DISTRESSING SEARCH FOR WATER.

The sun had by this time become intensely hot, and the poor fellows grew
faint for want of water, whilst it aggravated their sufferings that they
stood upon the brink of a river, or