egion, and
when I left it the udor had departed also. I got two of my
riding-horses shod to-day, as the country I intended to travel over is
about half stones and half scrub. I have marked a eucalyptus or
gum-tree in this gully close to the foot of the rock where I found the
water [EG/21], as this is my twenty-first camp from Chambers' Pillar.
My position here is in latitude 23 degrees 14', longitude 130 degrees
55', and variation 3 degrees east nearly. I could not start to-day as
the newly shod horses are so tender-footed that they seem to go worse
in their shoes; they may be better to-morrow. The water still holds
out. The camp is in a confined gully, and warm, though it is
comparatively a cool day. The grass here is very poor, and the horses
wander a great deal to look for feed. Four of them could not be found
in the morning. A slight thunderstorm passed over in the night, with a
sprinkling of rain for nearly an hour, but not sufficient fell to damp
a pocket-handkerchief. It was, however, quite sufficient to damp my
hopes of a good fall. The flies are very numerous here and
troublesome. After watering my two horses I started away by myself for
the ranges out west. I went on our old tracks as far as they went,
then I visited some other hills on my line of march. As usual, the
country alternated between open stones at the foot of the hills and
dense scrubs beyond. I thought one of the beds of scrubs I got into
the densest I had ever seen, it was actually impenetrable without
cutting one's way, and I had to turn around and about in all
directions. I had the greatest difficulty to get the horse I was
leading to come on at all; I had no power over him whatever. I could
not use either a whip or a stick, and he dragged so much that he
nearly pulled me out of my saddle, so that I could hardly tell which
way I was going, and it was extremely difficult to keep anything like
a straight course. Night overtook me, and I had to encamp in the
scrubs, having travelled nearly forty miles. A few drops of rain fell;
it may have benefited the horses, but to me it was a nuisance. I was
up, off my sandy couch early enough, but had to wait for daylight
before I could get the horses; they had wandered away for miles back
towards the camp, and I had the same difficulties over again when
getting them back to where the saddles were. In seven or eight miles
after starting I got out of the scrubs. At the foot of the mountain
for which I was stee