pe soon to shake off
such a disease, especially under such unfavourable circumstances as those
in which we were placed, I was yet thankful that I did not become worse.
For Mr. Browne, as he did not complain, I had every hope that he too had
succeeded in arresting the progress of this fearful distemper. It will
naturally occur to the reader as singular, that the officers only should
have been thus attacked; but the fact is, that they had been constantly
absent from the camp, and had therefore been obliged to use bacon,
whereas the men were living on fresh mutton; besides, the same men were
seldom taken on a second journey, but were allowed time to recover from
the exposure to which they had been subjected, but for the officers there
was no respite.

On the 18th the wind, which had again settled in the S.E. changed to the
N.E., and the sky became generally overcast. Heavy clouds hung over the
Mount Serle chain, and I thought that rain would have fallen, but all
these favourable indications vanished before sunset. At dawn of the
morning of the 19th, dense masses of clouds were seen, and thunder heard
to the west; and the wind shifting to that quater, we hoped that some of
the clouds would have been blown over to us, but they kept their place
for two days, and then gradually disappeared. These distant indications,
however, were sufficient to rouse us to exertion, in the hope of escaping
from the fearful captivity in which we had so long been held. I left the
camp on the 21st with Mr. Browne and Flood, thinking that rain might have
extended to the eastward from Mount Serle, sufficiently near to enable us
to push into the N.W. interior, and as it appeared to me that a W. by N.
course would take me abreast of Mount Hopeless, I ran upon it. At 16
miles I ascended a low range, but could not observe anything from it to
the westward but scrub. Descending from this range we struck the head of
a creek, and at six miles came on the last dregs of a pool of water, so
thick that it was useless to us. We next crossed barren stony undulations
and open plains, some of them apparently subject to floods; and halted at
half-past six, after a journey of between thirty and forty miles without
water, and with very little grass for our horses to eat. Although the
course we kept, had taken us at times to a considerable distance from the
creek, we again came on it before sunset, and consequently halted upon
its banks; but in tracing it down on the f