ation could I expect, or what hopes could
I entertain for the future, when the very water shed from the clouds
would not be drinkable after remaining a few hours on the ground?
Whichever way I turned myself, to the West, to the East, or the North,
nothing but difficulties met my view.

In one direction was an impracticable lake, skirted by heavy and scrubby
sand ridges; in another, a desert of bare and barren plains; and in a
third, a range of inhospitable rocks. The very stones lying upon the
hills looked like the scorched and withered scoria of a volcanic region;
and even the natives, judging from the specimen I had seen to-day,
partook of the general misery and wretchedness of the place.

My heart sank within me when I reflected upon the gradual but too obvious
change that had taken place in the character of the country for the
worse, and when I considered that for some days past we had been entirely
dependent for our supply of water upon the little puddles that had been
left on the plains by the rain, and which two or three more days would
completely dry up. Under circumstances so unpropitious, I had many
misgivings, and the contemplation of our future prospect became a subject
of painful anxiety.

July 12.--We moved away early, steering for Mount Deception. Near its
base, and emanating from it, we crossed the dry bed of a very large
watercourse, more resembling that of a river in character, its channel
being wide, deep, and well-defined, and lined with the salt-water
tea-tree; whilst its course was marked by very large, green looking
gum-trees, the bed consisted of an earthy, micaceous slate of a reddish
colour, and in very minute particles, almost in some places as fine as
sand, but we could find no water in it anywhere.

The range in which this watercourse has its source, is of the same slaty
rock, and very rugged; it could not be less than 3,000 feet in elevation,
and its summit was only attainable by winding along the steep and stony
ridges that led round the deep gorges and ravines by which it was
surrounded.

From the top the view was extensive and unsatisfactory. Lake Torrens
appearing as large and mysterious as ever, and bearing in its most
northerly extreme visible W. 22 degrees N. To the north was a low level
cheerless waste, and to the east Flinders range trending more easterly,
and then sweeping back to N. 28 degrees W. but its appearance seemed to
be changing and its character altering; the ranges