Hitherto we had found
brackish and occasionally salt water in some of the watercourses, but by
tracing them up among the hills, we had usually found the quality to
improve as we advanced, but now the springs were out in the open plains,
and the water poisoned at its very source.
Occasionally round the springs were a few coarse rushes, but the soil in
other respects was quite bare, destitute of vegetation, and thickly
coated over with salt, presenting the most miserable and melancholy
aspect imaginable. We were now in nearly the same latitude as that in
which Captain Sturt had discovered brine springs in the bed of the
Darling, and which had rendered even that river so perfectly salt that
his party could not make use of it.
September 2. - At thirty-five miles we reached the little elevation I had
been steering for, and ascended Mount Hopeless, and cheerless and
hopeless indeed was the prospect before us. As I had anticipated, the
view was both extensive and decisive. We were now past all the ranges;
and for three quarters of the compass, extending from south, round by
east and north, to west, the horizon was one unbroken level, except where
the fragments of table land, or the ridge of the lake, interrupted its
uniformity
The lake was now visible to the north and to the east; and I had at last
ascertained, beyond all doubt, that its basin, commencing near the head
of Spencer's Gulf, and following the course of Flinders range (bending
round its northern extreme to the southward), constituted those hills the
termination of the island of South Australia, for such I imagine it once
to have been.
