We Camped At A Small Rain-Water Hole About A Mile And A Half From A Bluff Hill, From Whose Top, A Few Stunted Gum-Trees Could Be Seen A Little Farther Up The Channel.

Having now run the Ashburton up to its head, I could scarcely expect to find any more water before entering Gibson's Desert, which I felt sure commences here.

So far as I knew, the next water was in the Rawlinson Range of my former horse expedition, a distance of over 450 miles. And what the nature of the country between was, no human being knew, at least no civilised human being. I was greatly disappointed to find that the Ashburton River did not exist for a greater distance eastwards than this, as when I first struck it, it seemed as though it would carry me to the eastwards for hundreds of miles. I had followed it only eighty or a trifle more, and now it was a thing of the past. It may be said to rise from nowhere, being like a vast number of Australian rivers, merely formed in its lower portions by the number of tributaries that join it. There are very few pretty or romantic places to be seen near it. The country and views at the Grand Junction Depot form nearly the only exceptions met. From that point the river decreased in size with every branch creek that joined it, and now it had decreased to nothing. No high ranges form its head.

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