travelled. At six miles we struck another creek with a broad and grassy
bed, on the banks of which we halted, at a small and muddy pool of water.
The trees on this creek were larger than usual and beautifully
umbrageous. It appeared as if coming from the N.E., and falling to the
N.W. There were many huts both above and below our bivouac, and
well-trodden paths from one angle of the creek to the other. All around
us, indeed, there were traces of natives, nor can there be any doubt, but
that at one season of the year or other, it is frequented by them in
great numbers. From a small contiguous elevation our view extended over
an apparently interminable plain in the line of our course. That of the
creek was marked by gum-trees, and I was not without hopes that we should
again have halted on it on the 21st, but we did not, for shortly after we
started it turned suddenly to the west, and we were obliged to leave it,
and crossed successive plains of a description similar to those we had
left behind, but with little or no vegetation upon them. At about five
miles we intersected a branch creek coming from the E.N.E., in which
there was a large but shallow pool of water. About a mile to the westward
of this channel we ascended some hills, in the composition of which there
was more clay than sand, and descended from them to a firm and grassy
plain of about three and a half miles in breadth. At the farther
extremity we crossed a line of sand hills, and at a mile and a half again
descended to lower ground, and made for some gum-trees at the western
extremity of the succeeding plain, on our old bearing of 55 degrees to
the west of north. There we intersected another creek with two pools of
water in it, and as there was also a sufficiency of grass we halted on
its banks.

The singular and rapid succession of these watercourses exceedingly
perplexed me, for we were in a country remote from any high lands, and
consequently in one not likely to give birth to such features, yet their
existence was a most fortunate circumstance for us. There can be no doubt
but that the rain, which enabled us to break up the old Depot and resume
our operations, had extended thus far, but all the surface water had
dried up, and if we had not found these creeks our progress into the
interior would have been checked. In considering their probable origin,
it struck me that they might have been formed by the rush of floods from
the extensive plains we had latel