nor could he find any but some
brackish water obtained by digging in some sandhills. Worse than all, he
sacrificed three of his best horses during these fruitless attempts.

On the 25th of January, the Hero arrived with the oats and bran he had
sent back for. So poverty-stricken was the country that Eyre, in the
circumstances, resolved to send back nearly the whole of his expedition
by the vessel, and then, with only a small party, to push through to King
George's Sound or perish in the attempt.

Baffled successively to the north and to the west, Eyre had been put upon
his mettle, and he could not endure the thought of returning to Adelaide
a beaten man.

On the 31st of January the cutter departed, and Eyre, Baxter, and three
native boys, one of whom had come by the vessel on her last trip, were
left alone to face the eight hundred miles of desert solitude before
them. Some time was spent in making their final preparations, but on the
24th of February they had actually begun their journey when, to their
astonishment, they heard two shots fired at sea. Thinking that a whaler
had put in to the bay, Eyre turned back, but found the Hero again in port
with an urgent request from Adelaide to abandon his desperate project,
and return in the vessel. Upon a man of Eyre's temperament, this recall
could have only one effect, that of strengthening his resolve to proceed
westward at all hazards. He did not emulate Cortez by burning his ship
behind him, but he none the less effectually deprived himself of means of
retreat by dismissing the little Hero.

It was at the close of a hot summer when Eyre started, and the nature of
the sandy soil, combined with the low prickly scrub, soon began to hamper
their progress and render the lack of water especially severe. On one
side of them, flanking their line of march, were the cliffs of the Great
Bight, against which thundered the ever-restless southern rollers; on the
other there stretched a limitless expanse of dark, gloomy scrub. Their
only hope of relief was the faint chance of striking some native path
which might lead them to an infrequent soakage-spring. Even in these
depressing circumstances, Eyre seems to have found time to express his
admiration of Nature as she then revealed herself to him:--

"Distressing and fatal as the continuance of these cliffs might prove to
us, there was a grandeur and sublimity in their appearance that was most
imposing, and which struck me with admira