f my readers, who are as well able to judge of such a fact as
myself.

I would also advert to a circumstance I neglected to mention in its
proper place, but which may be as forcibly done now as at the time it
occurred. When Mr. Browne and I were on our recent journey to the north,
after having crossed the Stony Desert, being then between it and Eyre's
Creek, about nine o'clock in the morning, we distinctly heard a report as
of a great gun discharged, to the westward, at the distance of half a
mile. On the following morning, nearly at the same hour, we again heard
the sound; but it now came from a greater distance, and consequently was
not so clear. When I was on the Darling, in lat. 30 degrees, in 1828, I
was roused from my work by a similar report; but neither on that
occasion, or on this, could I solve the mystery in which it was involved.
It might, indeed, have been some gaseous explosion, but I never, in the
interior, saw any indication of such phenomena.

We were obliged to fasten up our horses to prevent them from straying for
water, and had, therefore, nothing to do but to saddle them on the
morning of the 10th, and started at six. Our journey the day before had
been 33 miles: this day we rode about 36, to the little muddy creek the
the reader will, I have no doubt, call to mind. In it, contrary to my
expectation, we found a small supply of water, though difficult to get;
and I halted at it, therefore, for the night, and reached the Strzelecki
Creek about half-past ten on the morning of the 11th, in which I was
rejoiced to find that the water was far from being exhausted. Turning
northwards up the creek, I halted about half-past one at the upper pool,
about seven miles from the first. As far as this point the lay of the
sand ridges was N.N.E. and S.S.W.

As Mr. Browne had stated to me, the country to the north was much more
open from the point at which we now were than to the west. A vast plain,
indeed, met the horizon in the first direction, and as we rode up it on
the 12th, we observed that it was bounded at irregular distances, varying
from three to six miles, on either side of us, by low sand hills. The
whole plain was evidently subject to flood, and the travelling in some
places was exceedingly heavy. We had ridden from early dawn until the sun
had sunk below the horizon, without seeing any apparent termination to
this plain, or the slightest indication of water. Just as it was twilight
we got on a polygon