en range alluded to, which, ending abruptly, runs parallel with the
river at a distance varying from four to seven miles. On the 7th
September, I encamped upon a small water-hole in 26 degrees 0 minutes 13
seconds, in the midst of a desert not producing a morsel of vegetation;
yet so long as we could find water, transient as it was, I continued to
push on with the hope of reaching, sooner or later, some grassy spot,
whereon by a halt I might refresh the horses; however, that hope was
destroyed at the close of the next day, for although I had commenced an
early search for water when travelling to the southward, with numerous
channels on either side of me, I was compelled at length to encamp in
latitude 26 degrees 13 minutes 9 seconds, and longitude, by account, 142
degrees 20 minutes, on the bank of a deep channel, without either water
or food for our wearied horses. The following morning, taking one man and
Harry with me, we made a close search down the most promising
watercourses and lagoons, but upon riding down even the deepest of them,
we invariably found them break off into several insignificant channels,
which again subdivided, and in a short distance dissipated the waters,
derived from what had appeared the dry bed of a large river, on the
absorbing plain; returning in disappointment to the camp, I sent my
lightest man and Harry on other horses to look into the channels still
unexamined, but they also returned unsuccessful. We had seen late fires
of the natives at which they had passed the night without water, and
tracked them on their path from lagoon to lagoon in search of it; we also
found that they had encamped on some of the deepest channels in
succession, quitting each as it had become dry, having previously made
holes to drain off the last moisture. My horses were by this time
literally starving, and all we could give them was the rotten straw and
weeds which had covered some deserted huts of the natives. Seeing, then,
that it would be the certain loss of many, and consequently an
unjustifiable risk of my party to attempt to push farther into a country
where the aborigines themselves were at a loss to find water, I felt it
my imperative duty to at once abandon it. I would here beg to remark,
that although unsuccessful in my attempt to follow it that far, from the
appearance of the country, and long-continued direction of the river's
course, I think there can exist but little doubt that the "Victoria" is
iden