We Packed Up And Went Off, Hoping To Find A Better Watered Region At The Hills Westwards.

There was an extraordinary mount a little to the west of north from us; it looked something like a church; it was over twenty miles away:

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. We fixed up our tent and retired for the night, the wind blowing furiously, as might reasonably be expected, for it was the eve of the vernal equinox, and this I supposed was our share of the equinoctial gales. We were compelled in the morning to remove the camp, as we had not a drop of water, and unless it descended in sheets the country could not hold it, being all pure red sand. The hill near us had no rocky ledges to catch water, so we made off for the higher mountains for which we were steering yesterday. Their nearest or most eastern point was not more than four miles away, and we went first to it. I walked on ahead of the horses with the shovel, to a small gully I saw with the glasses, having some few eucalypts growing in it. I walked up it, to and over rocky ledges, down which at times, no doubt, small leaping torrents roar. Very little of yesterday's rain had fallen here; but most fortunately I found one small rock reservoir, with just sufficient water for all the horses. There was none either above or below in any other basin, and there were many better-looking places, but all were dry.

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