Very Far To The West Was Another Ridge, But It Was Too Distant For Me To Reach Now, As To-Night The Horses Would Have Been Two Nights Without Water, And The Probability Was They Would Get None There If They Reached It.

I determined to visit it, however, but I felt I must first return to the tank in the little glen to refresh the exhausted horses.

From where we are, the prospect is wild and weird, with the white bed of the great lake sweeping nearly the whole southern horizon. The country near the lake consists of open sandhills, thickly bushed and covered with triodia; farther back grew casuarinas and mulga scrubs.

It was long past the middle of the day when I descended from the hill. We had no alternative but to return to the only spot where we knew water was to be had; this was now distant twenty-one miles to the north-east, so we departed in a straight line for it. I was heartily annoyed at being baffled in my attempt to reach the mountain, which I now thought more than ever would offer a route out of this terrible region; but it seemed impossible to escape from it. I named this eminence Mount Olga, and the great salt feature which obstructed me Lake Amadeus, in honour of two enlightened royal patrons of science. The horses were now exceedingly weak; the bogging of yesterday had taken a great deal of strength out of them, and the heat of the last two days had contributed to weaken them (the thermometer to-day went up to 101 degrees in shade). They could now only travel slowly, so that it was late at night when we reached the little tank.

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