About three o'clock, Mr. Scott arrived with the dray, after a long and
harassing stage of twenty miles over a low, stony, and scrubby tract of
country, between Mount Hall and Streaky Bay, and which extended beyond
our track to the coast hummocks to the west. These latter appeared
somewhat high, and under them we had seen many salt-water lakes from the
summit of Mount Hall.
My party were now once more all assembled together, after having been
separated for nearly seven weeks; during which, neither division knew
what had befallen the other, and both were necessarily anxious to be
reunited again, since, in the event of any mischance occurring to either,
the other would have been placed in circumstances of much difficulty, if
not of danger; and the whole object of the undertaking would have been
frustrated.
The great delay caused by my having been obliged to send over from Port
Lincoln to Adelaide for supplies, had thrown us very late in the season;
the summer was rapidly advancing, the weather even now, being frequently
intensely hot, whilst the grass was gradually drying up and losing its
nourishment.
