would have been a little
more than 300 miles. It was from this point that Sir Thomas Mitchell
retreated after his rupture with the natives in 1836; because, as he
himself informs us, he just then ascertained that a small stream joined
the Darling from the westward a little below his camp, and he likewise
saw hills in the same direction.

In consequence of the inhospitable character of the country to the north,
I had turned my attention to the above locality, and had been assured by
the natives, both of the Murray and the Darling, that the Williorara
(Laidley's Ponds) was a hill stream, that it came far from the N.W., that
it had large fish in it, and that its banks were grassy. It struck me,
therefore, that it would be a much more eligible line for the expedition
to run up the Darling to lat. 32 degrees 26 minutes, and then to trace
the Williorara upwards into the hills, with the chance of meeting the
opposite fall of waters, rather than to entangle myself and waste my
first energies amidst scrub and salt lagoons. As I understood my
instructions and the wishes of the Secretary of State, I was to keep on
the 138th meridian (that of Mount Arden) until I should reach the
supposed chain of mountains, the existence of which it was the object of
Lord Stanley to ascertain, or until I was turned aside from it by some
impracticable object. Lake Torrens being due north of Mount Arden would,
if I had taken that line, have been direct in my way, and I should have
had to turn either its eastern or its western flank. The
Surveyor-General, Captain Frome, had tried the former, but although he
went considerably to the eastward into the low and desert interior before
he turned northwards, he still found himself entangled in that sandy
basin, so that it appeared to me that I should do little more than clear
it on the course I proposed to take.

As the reader, however, will learn in the perusal of these pages, I was
wholly disappointed in the character of the Williorara. Where that
channel joins the Darling, the upward course of that river is to the
north-east; and as that was a course directly opposite to the one I felt
myself bound to take, I abandoned it and took at once to the hills. At my
Depot Prison, in lat. 29 degrees 40 minutes, and in long. 141 degrees 30
minutes E., I hoped that we had sufficiently cleared the north-east limit
of Lake Torrens; but when on the fall of rain we resumed our labours, we
measured 131 3/4 miles with