whaler Mississippi, the first foreign
vessel to enter Port Lincoln. Rossitur was the man who was destined later
to afford opportune aid to Eyre, without which he would never have
reached Albany.

On the 18th of June, 1840, Eyre's preparations were complete, and he left
Adelaide after a farewell breakfast at Government House, where Captain
Sturt presented him with a flag -- the Union Jack -- worked by some of
the ladies of Adelaide.

His party was not a large one considering the nature of the undertaking,
consisting as it did of six white men and two black boys. At Mount Arden
they formed a stationary camp. A small vessel called the Waterwitch was
sent to the head of Spencer's Gulf with the heaviest portion of their
supplies, and the party had three horse drays with them. Eyre trusted
that a range of hills, which he had seen stretching to the north-east,
would continue far enough to take him clear of the flat and depressed
country around Lake Torrens -- would, in fact, as he says, form a
stepping-stone into the interior.

Taking one black boy with him, Eyre made a short trip to Lake Torrens,
leaving the rest of the party to land the stores from the Waterwitch. He
found the bed of the lake coated with a crust of salt, pure white, and
glistening brilliantly in the sunshine. It yielded to the footstep, and
below was soft mud, which rapidly grew so boggy as to stop their
progress. In fact they had to return to the shore without being able to
ascertain whether there was any water on the surface or not. At this
point the lake appeared to be about fifteen or twenty miles across,
having high land bounding it on the distant west.

There seemed no chance of crossing the lake; and following its shore to
the north was impossible. There was neither grass nor water; the very
rainwater turned salt after lying a short time on the saline soil. The
only chance of success appeared to be to keep close to the north-eastern
range, which Eyre named the Flinders Range, trusting to its broken
gullies to supply them with some scanty grass and rainwater.

It was a cheerless outlook. On one side was an impassable lake of
combined mud and salt; on the other a desert of bare and barren plains;
whilst their onward path was along a range of inhospitable rocks.

"The very stones, lying upon the hills," says Eyre, "looked like scorched
and withered scoria of a volcanic region, and even the natives, judging
from the specimen I had seen to-day, parto