of
water, and giving another to the horses. After this, we succeeded in
getting them along, with the remainder, to the undulating plains; and
here we halted for the night, after a stage of only seven miles, but one,
which, short as it was, had nearly worn out the draught horses. Here we
dug a large hole, and buried twenty-two gallons of water, for my own
horse, and that of the black boy, on our return; and as I determined to
take a man with me, with a pack-horse, nine gallons more were buried
apart from the other, for them, so that when the man got his cask of
water, he might not disturb ours, or leave traces by which the natives
could discover it.

January 6.--Sending back the dray with the overseer, at the first dawn of
day, I and the native boy proceeded to the north-west, accompanied by the
man leading a pack-horse with twelve gallons of water. The day turned out
hot, and the road was over a very heavy sandy country; but by eleven
o'clock we had accomplished a distance of seventeen miles, and had
reached the furthest point from which I turned back on the 1st December.
I walked alternately with the boy, so as not to oppress the riding
horses, but the man walked all the way.

The weather was most intensely hot, a strong wind blowing from the
north-east, throwing upon us an oppressive and scorching current of
heated air, like the hot blast of a furnace. There was no
misunderstanding the nature of the country from which such a wind came;
often as I had been annoyed by the heat, I had never experienced any
thing like it before. Had anything been wanting to confirm my previous
opinion of the arid and desert character of the great mass of the
interior of Australia, this wind would have been quite sufficient for
that purpose. From those who differ from me in opinion (and some there
are who do so whose intelligence and judgment entitle their opinion to
great respect), I would ask, could such a wind be be wafted over an
inland sea? or could it have passed over the supposed high, and perhaps
snowcapped mountains of the interior.

We were all now suffering greatly from the heat; the man who was with me
was quite exhausted: under the annoyances of the moment, his spirits
failed him, and giving way to his feelings of fatigue and thirst, he lay
rolling on the ground, and groaning in despair; all my efforts to rouse
him were for a long time in vain, and I could not even induce him to get
up to boil a little tea for himself. We