I Called It Mount Peculiar.

Leaving the creek on our left, to run itself out into some lonely flat or dismal swamp, known only

To the wretched inhabitants of this desolate region - over which there seems to brood an unutterable stillness and a dread repose - we struck into sandhill country, rather open, covered with the triodia or spinifex, and timbered with the casuarina or black oak trees. We had scarcely gone two miles when our old thunderstorm came upon us - it had evidently missed us at first, and had now come to look for us - and it rained heavily. The country was so sandy and porous that no water remained on the surface. We travelled on and the storm travelled with us - the ground sucking up every drop that fell. Continuing our course, which was north 67 degrees west, we travelled twenty-five miles. At this distance we came in sight of the mountains I was steering for, but they were too distant to reach before night, so, turning a little northward to the foot of a low, bare, white granite hill, I hoped to find a creek, or at least some ledges in the rocks, where we might get some water. Not a drop was to be found. Though we had been travelling in the rain all day and accomplished thirty miles, we were obliged to camp without water at last. There was good feed for the horses, and, as it was still raining, they could not be very greatly in want of water.

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