arty away from their resources,
and shall make the south the constant base of their operations."

I presume, from the tenor of Sir John Barrow's memorandum, that he was
not fully aware of the insurmountable difficulties the course he
recommends presented. Valuing his judgment as I did on such an occasion,
and anxious as I was to act on the suggestions of the Secretary of State,
the strongest grounds could alone have made me pursue a course different
to that which had been recommended to me. Certainly the fear of any
ordinary difficulty would not have influenced me to reject the line
pointed out, but I felt satisfied that if Lord Stanley and Sir John
Barrow could be made aware of the nature of the country to the north of
Mount Arden, and the reasons why I considered it would be more
advantageous to take the line of the Darling, they would have concurred
in opinion with me. I would myself much rather have taken the line by
Mount Arden, since it would have been a greater novelty, and I would have
precluded the chance of any collision with the natives of the Darling,
more especially at that point to which I proposed to go, and at which Sir
Thomas Mitchell had had a rupture with them in 1836. The journeys of Mr.
Eyre had, however, proved the impracticability of a direct northerly
course from Mount Arden. Such a course would have led me into the
horseshoe of Lake Torrens; and although I might have passed to the
westward of it, I could hope for no advantage in a country such as that
which lies to the north of the Gawler Range. On the other hand, the
Surveyor-General of South Australia had attempted a descent into the
interior from the eastward, and had encountered great difficulties from
the want of water. Local inquiry and experience both went to prove the
little likelihood of that indispensable element being found to the north
of Spencer's Gulf. It appeared to me also that Sir John Barrow had
mistaken the point on the Darling to which I proposed going. It was not,
as he seems to have conjectured, to any point to which I had previously
been, but to an intermediate one. It is very true that if I had
contemplated pushing up the Darling to Fort Bourke, the distance would
have been 600 miles, and that, too, in a direction contrary to the one in
which I was instructed to proceed; but to Laidley's Ponds, in lat. 32
degrees 26 minutes 0 seconds S. and long. 142 degrees 30 minutes W., (the
point to which I proposed to go) the distance