When We Camped We Were Hungry, Thirsty, Tired, Covered All Over With Dry Salt Mud; So That It Is Not To Be Wondered At If Our Spirits Were Not At A Very High Point, Especially As We Were Making A Forced Retreat.

The night was hot, cloudy, and sultry, and rain clouds gathered in the sky.

At about 1 a.m. the distant rumblings of thunder were heard to the west-north-west, and I was in hopes some rain might fall, as it was apparently approaching; the thunder was not loud, but the lightning was most extraordinarily vivid; only a few drops of rain fell, and the rest of the night was even closer and more sultry than before.

Ere the stars had left the sky we were in our saddles again; the horses looked most pitiable objects, their flanks drawn in, the natural vent was distended to an open and extraordinary cavity; their eyes hollow and sunken, which is always the case with horses when greatly in want of water. Two days of such stages will thoroughly test the finest horse that ever stepped. We had thirty-six miles yet to travel to reach the water. The horses being so jaded, it was late in the afternoon when they at last crawled into the little glen; the last few miles being over stones made the pace more slow. Not even their knowledge of the near presence of water availed to inspirit them in the least; probably they knew they would have to wait for hours at the tank, when they arrived, before their cravings for water could be appeased. The thermometer to-day was 104 degrees in the shade. When we arrived the horses had walked 131 miles without a drink, and it was no wonder that the poor creatures were exhausted. When one horse had drank what little water there was, we had to re-dig the tank, for the wind or some other cause had knocked a vast amount of the sand into it again. Some natives also had visited the place while we were away, their fresh tracks were visible in the sand around, and on the top of the tank. They must have stared to see such a piece of excavation in their territory. When the horses did get water, two of them rolled, and groaned, and kicked, so that I thought they were going to die; one was a mare, she seemed the worst, another was a strong young horse which had carried me well, the third was my old favourite riding-horse; this time he had only carried the pack, and was badly bogged; he was the only one that did not appear distressed when filled with water, the other two lay about in evident pain until morning. About the middle of the night thunder was again heard, and flash after flash of even more vivid lightnings than that of the previous night enlightened the glen; so bright were the flashes, being alternately fork and sheet lightning, that for nearly an hour the glare never ceased. The thunder was much louder than last night's, and a slight mizzling rain for about an hour fell. The barometer had fallen considerably for the last two days, so I anticipated a change. The rain was too slight to be of any use; the temperature of the atmosphere, however, was quite changed, for by the morning the thermometer was down to 48 degrees.

The horses were not fit to travel, so we had to remain, with nothing to do, but consult the little map again, and lay off my position on it. My farthest point I found to be in latitude 24 degrees 38' and longitude 130 degrees. For the second time I had reached nearly the same meridian. I had been repulsed at both points, which were about a hundred miles apart, in the first instance by dry stony ranges in the midst of dense scrubs, and in the second by a huge salt lake equally destitute of fresh water. It appears to me plain enough that a much more northerly or else more southerly course must be pursued to reach the western coast, at all events in such a country, it will be only by time and perseverance that any explorer can penetrate it. I think I remarked before that we entered this little glen through a pass about half-a-mile long, between two hills of red sandstone. I named this Worrill's Pass, after another friend of Mr. Carmichael. The little glen in which we dug out the tank I could only call Glen Thirsty, for we never returned to it but ourselves and our horses, were choking for water. Our supply of rations, although we had eked it out with the greatest possible economy, was consumed, for we brought only a week's supply, and we had now been absent ten days from home, and we should have to fast all to-morrow, until we reached the depot; but as the horses were unable to carry us, we were forced to remain.

During the day I had a long conversation with Mr. Carmichael upon our affairs in general, and our stock of provisions in particular; the conclusion we arrived at was, that having been nearly three months out, we had not progressed so far in the time as we had expected. We had found the country so dry that until rains fell, it seemed scarcely probable that we should be able to penetrate farther to the west, and if we had to remain in depot for a month or two, it was necessary by some means to economise our stores, and the only way to do so was to dispense with the services of Alec Robinson. It would be necessary, of course, in the first place, to find a creek to the eastward, which would take him to the Finke, and by the means of the same watercourse we might eventually get round to the southern shores of Lake Amadeus, and reach Mount Olga at last.

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