The Country, Except In The Immediate Neighbourhood Of The Wells, Was, As Usual In This Region, All Sandhills And Scrub, Although At Eighteen Miles, Steering West, I Came Upon The Shores Of A Large Salt Depression, Or Lake-Bed, Which Had Numerous Sandhill Islands Scattered About It.

It appeared to extend to a considerable distance southerly.

By digging we easily obtained a quantity of water, but it was all pure brine and utterly useless. After this we met lake-bed after lake-bed, all in a region of dense scrubs and sandhills for sixty miles, some were small, some large, though none of the size of the first one. At seventy-eight miles from Ooldabinna, having come as near west as it is possible to steer in such a country on a camel - of course I had a Gregory's compass - we had met no signs of water fit for man or animal to drink, though brine and bog existed in most of the lake-beds. The scrubs were very thick, and were chiefly mallee, the Eucalyptus dumosa, of course attended by its satellite spinifex. So dense indeed was the growth of the scrubs, that Alec Ross declared, figuratively speaking, "you could not see your hand before you." We could seldom get a view a hundred yards in extent, and we wandered on farther and farther from the only place where we knew that water existed. At this distance, on the shores of a salt-lake, there was really a very pretty scene, though in such a frightful desert.

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