tending, seemed
to unite their energies to render our stay in that dreadful region still
more intolerable. The heat was greater than that of the previous summer;
the thermometer ranging between 110 degrees and 123 degrees every day;
the wind blowing heavily from N.E. to E.S.E. filled the air with
impalpable red dust, giving the sun the most foreboding and lurid
appearance as we looked upon him. The ground was so heated that our
matches falling on it, ignited; and, having occasion to make a night
signal, I found the whole of our rockets had been rendered useless, as on
being lit they exploded at once without rising from the ground.

I had occasion--in the first volume of this work--to remark that I
should at a future period have to make some observations on the state of
the vegetation at this particular place; there being about a month or six
weeks difference between the periods of the year when we first arrived
at, and subsequently returned to it. When we first arrived on the 27th of
January, 1845, the cereal grasses had ripened their seed, and the larger
shrubs were fast maturing their fruit; the trees were full of birds, and
the plains were covered with pigeons--having nests under every bush. At
the close of November of the same year--that is to say six weeks
earlier--not an herb had sprung from the ground, not a bud had swelled,
and, where the season before the feathered tribes had swarmed in hundreds
on the creek, scarcely a bird was now to be seen. Our cattle wandered
about in search for food, and the silence of the grave reigned around us
day and night.

Was it instinct that warned the feathered races to shun a region in which
the ordinary course of nature had been arrested, and over which the wrath
of the Omnipotent appeared to hang? Or was it that a more genial season
in the country to which they migrate, rendered their desertion of it at
the usual period unnecessary? Most sincerely do I hope that the latter
was the case, and that a successful destiny will await the bold and
ardent traveller [Note 10. Dr. Leichhardt had started to cross the
Continent some time before.] who is now crossing those regions.

On the 20th I sent Flood down the creek to ascertain if water remained in
it or the farther holes mentioned by the natives, thinking that in such a
case we might work our way to the eastward; but on the 23rd he returned
without having seen a drop of water from the moment he left us. The deep
and narrow channel