The Day Had Been Hot.

When I left this singular watercourse, where plenty of water existed in its upper portions, but was either too bitter or too salt for use, I named it Elder's Creek.

The other that joins it I called Hughes's Creek, and the range in which they exist the Colonel's Range.

There was not much water left for the horse. He was standing close to the bag for some hours before daylight. He drank it up and away we went, having forty miles to go. I arrived very late. Everything was well except the water supply, and that was gradually ceasing. In a week there will be none. The day had been pleasant and cool.

Several more days were spent here, re-digging and enlarging the old tank and trying to find a new. Gibson and I went to some hills to the south, with a rampart-like face. The place swarmed with pigeons, but we could find no water. We could hear the birds crooning and cooing in all directions as we rode, "like the moan of doves in immemorial elms, and the murmurings of innumerable bees." This rampart-like ridge was festooned with cypress pines, and had there been water there, I should have thought it a very pretty place. Every day was telling upon the water at the camp. We had to return unsuccessful, having found none. The horses were loose, and rambled about in several mobs and all directions, and at night we could not get them all together. The water was now so low that, growl as we may, go we must. It was five p.m. on the 17th of November when we left. The nearest water now to us that I knew of was at Fort Mueller, but I decided to return to it by a different route from that we had arrived on, and as some hills lay north-easterly, and some were pretty high, we went away in that direction.

We travelled through the usual poor country, and crossed several dry water-channels. In one I thought to get a drink for the horses. The party having gone on, I overtook them and sent Gibson back with the shovel. We brought the horses back to the place, but he gave a very gloomy opinion of it. The supply was so poor that, after working and watching the horses all night, they could only get a bucketful each by morning, and I was much vexed at having wasted time and energy in such a wretched spot, which we left in huge disgust, and continued on our course. Very poor regions were traversed, every likely-looking spot was searched for water. I had been steering for a big hill from the Shoeing Camp; a dry creek issued from its slopes. Here the hills ceased in this northerly direction, only to the east and south-east could ranges be seen, and it is only in them that water can be expected in this region. Fort Mueller was nearly fifty miles away, on a bearing of 30 degrees south of east. We now turned towards it. A detached, jagged, and inviting-looking range lay a little to the east of north-east; it appeared similar to the Fort Mueller hills. I called it Jamieson's* Range, but did not visit it. Half the day was lost in useless searching for water, and we encamped without any; thermometer 104 degrees at ten a.m. At night we camped on an open piece of spinifex country. We had thunder and lightning, and about six heat-drops of rain fell.

The next day we proceeded on our course for Fort Mueller; at twelve miles we had a shower of rain, with thunder and lightning, that lasted a few seconds only. We were at a bare rock, and had the rain lasted with the same force for only a minute, we could have given our horses a drink upon the spot, but as it was we got none. The horses ran all about licking the rock with their parched tongues.

Late at night we reached our old encampment, where we had got water in the sandy bed of the creek. It was now no longer here, and we had to go further up. I went on ahead to look for a spot, and returning, met the horses in hobbles going up the creek, some right in the bed. I intended to have dug a tank for them, but the others let them go too soon. I consoled myself by thinking that they had only to go far enough, and they would get water on the surface. With the exception of the one bucket each, this was their fourth night without water. The sky was now as black as pitch; it thundered and lightened, and there was every appearance of a fall of rain, but only a light mist or heavy dew fell for an hour or two; it was so light and the temperature so hot that we all lay without a rag on till morning.

At earliest dawn Mr. Tietkens and I took the shovel and walked to where we heard the horsebells. Twelve of the poor animals were lying in the bed of the creek, with limbs stretched out as if dead, but we were truly glad to find they were still alive, though some of them could not get up. Some that were standing up were working away with their hobbled feet the best way they could, stamping out the sand trying to dig out little tanks, and one old stager had actually reached the water in his tank, so we drove him away and dug out a proper place. We got all the horses watered by nine o'clock. It was four a.m. when we began to dig, and our exercise gave us an excellent appetite for our breakfast. Gibson built a small bough gunyah, under which we sat, with the thermometer at 102 degrees.

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