rmation existing to the north-west was
merely local, and that by thus turning a few degrees from the course on
which we had before gone, we should altogether avoid it. I should not,
however, have taken Joseph and Lewis with the cart, if I had not been
somewhat apprehensive that the natives might visit the camp during my
absence, and some misunderstanding be the consequence; for as we had
hitherto found the country to the westward worse than at any other point,
I was after all doubtful how far I should be able to push on.

We left the creek on a W. by N. course, the direction of the sandy ridges
being to the N.N.W., so that we were obliged to cross them successively.
I soon found that the country was infinitely worse than I expected. We
had scarcely passed a kind of marsh at some little distance from the
creek, when we once more crossed salty valleys, between high sandy
ridges. The wind blowing fresh from the south, peppered us with showers
of sand as we ascended the last, and carried the salt in the valleys like
drifting snow from one end of them to the other, filling our eyes and
entering the pores of the skin, so as to cause us much annoyance. Before
noon we had crossed eighteen of these sandy undulations, and were on the
top of another, having fairly tired the horses in the ascent, and I
consequently pulled up, to wait for the cart, but the heavy nature of the
country had so shaken it, that the men were obliged to stop; and on
examining the spokes of the wheels, I really wondered how they could have
got on so far, and expected that in another half mile every one of them
would be shaken out, and the cart itself fall to the ground. The spokes
had shrunk to such a degree that they did not hold in the felloes and
axles by more than two or three 10ths of an inch. I felt it necessary
therefore to turn back to the creek, to get new spokes of such wood as we
could procure, there not being a tree of any kind visible near us; but it
was late ere we got back to water, and once more took up our position on
the same ground we had quitted in the morning. The country we had passed
was certainly such as to deter me from making a second attempt in the
same quarter, and to confirm my impression that from some cause or other
the interior to the westward was worse than anywhere else. Lewis, the
moment we got back to the creek, set to work in good earnest, with
Joseph's assistance, to repair the cart, but it necessarily delayed us
longer