I Was Much Pleased To Think I Had Distanced The Scrubs.

One cone in the new range bore north 52 degrees west, and for some distance the creek trended that way.

On reaching the foot of the new hills, I found the creek had greatly altered its appearance, if indeed it was the same. It is possible the main creek may have turned more to the west, and that this is only a tributary, but as we found some surface water in a clay-hole, we liked it better than having to dig in a larger channel. Here for the first time for many weeks we came upon some green grass, which the horses greedily devoured. The country here is much better and more open. On mustering the horses this morning, one was found to be dead lame, with a mulga stake in his coronet, and as he could not travel we were forced to remain at the camp; at least the camp was not shifted. This horse was called Trew; he was one of the best in the mob, though then I had not found out all his good qualities - he now simply carried a pack. Mr. Tietkens and I mounted our horses and rode farther up the creek. The channel had partly recovered its appearance, and it may be our old one after all. Above the camp its course was nearly north, and a line of low bluff-faced hills formed its eastern bank. The country towards the new ranges looked open and inviting, and we rode to a prominent cone in it, to the west-north-west. The country was excellent, being open and grassy, and having fine cotton and salt bush flats all over it: there was surface water in clay-pans lying about. I called this the Anthony Range. We returned much pleased with our day's ride.

The nights were now agreeably cool, sometimes very dewy. The lame horse was still very bad, but we lightened his load, and after the first mile he travelled pretty well. We steered for the singular cone in advance. Most of the hills, however, of the Anthony Range were flat-topped, though many tent-shaped ones exist also. I ascended the cone in ten miles, west of north-west from camp. The view displayed hills for miles in all directions, amongst which were many bare rocks of red colour heaped into the most fantastically tossed mounds imaginable, with here and there an odd shrub growing from the interstices of the rocks; some small miniature creeks, with only myal and mulga growing in them, ran through the valleys - all of these had recently been running. We camped a mile or two beyond the cone in an extremely pretty and romantic valley; the grass was green, and Nature appeared in one of her smiling moods, throwing a gleam of sunshine on the minds of the adventurers who had sought her in one of her wilderness recesses. The only miserable creature in our party was the lame horse, but now indeed he had a mate in misfortune, for we found that another horse, Giant Despair, had staked himself during our day's march, though he did not appear lame until we stopped, and his hobbles were about to be put on.

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