The Rain Fell In A Slight And Gentle Shower Two Or Three Hours, But It Left No Trace Of Its Fall, Even Upon The Rocks, So That Our Water Supply Was Not Increased By One Pint.

To-morrow I am off; it is useless to remain in a region such as this. But where shall I go next?

The creek I had last got water in, might even now be dry. I determined to try and reach it farther down its channel. If it existed beyond where I left it, I expected, in twenty-five to thirty miles, in a southerly direction, to strike it again: therefore, I decided to travel in that direction. A few quandongs, or native peach trees, exist amongst these gullies; also a tree that I only know by the name of the corkwood tree. ("Sesbania grandiflora," Baron Mueller says, "North-Western Australia; to the verge of the tropics; Indian Archipelago; called in Australia the corkwood tree; valuable for various utilitarian purposes. The red-flowered variety is grandly ornamented. Dr. Roxburgh recommends the leaves and young pods as an exquisite spinach; the plant is shy of frost.") The wood is soft, and light in weight and colour. It is by no means a handsome tree. It grows about twenty feet high. Generally two or three are huddled together, as though growing from one stem. Those I saw were nearly all dead. They grow in the little water channels. The ants here, as in nearly the whole of Tropical Australia, build nests from four to six feet high - in some other parts I have known them twenty - to escape, I suppose, from the torrents of rain that at times fall in these regions:

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