wo tracks, Forrest, in 1874, made a remarkable journey from West to East,
connecting his traverse with that of Gosse, who from the East had
penetrated some 150 miles into the Western Colony, and finally reached the
Adelaide-Port Darwin telegraph line. This journey was accomplished with
horses, and Forrest, like Stuart in Central Australia, happened to strike
a belt of country intersected by low ranges and hills in which he found
water. On his left hand was the undulating hill-less desert crossed by
Giles, on his right a wilderness of rolling sandhills. Not only was
Forrest a surveyor but a bushman as well, and accompanied by good men and
black-boys, who let not the slightest indications of the existence of
water escape them. One has only to notice the numerous twists and turns in
his route to understand that no pains were spared to find water, and thus
from rock-hole to rock-hole he wound his way across.

It seems certain that Forrest must have had an exceptional season, judging
from the difficulties that have beset subsequent travellers, even though
they had camels, over the same route. Mills, Hubbe, Carr-Boyd, Macpherson,
and Frost have in late years traversed the same country, not following
exactly in Forrest's footsteps, but visiting several waters yielding a
plentiful supply when found by him, but which were dry when seen by them.
Nevertheless if ever an overland route for stock is found from Central
Australia to the Coolgardie fields, I feel confident it will closely
approximate to Forrest's route of 1874 for a considerable distance.
Between Giles's northern track and that of the next explorer, Warburton,
there is a gap of some four hundred miles. Colonel Warburton, with a party
of four white men, two Afghans, and one black-boy, left Central Australia,
in 1873 to cross to the western coast. This he succeeded in doing after
fearful hardships and sufferings, entailing the death of sixteen out of
seventeen camels, the temporary failure of his eyesight, and the permanent
loss of one eye. One of his party lost his reason, which he never properly
recovered, and sufferings untold were experienced by the whole expedition,
the members of which narrowly escaped with their lives. Indeed they would
not have done so but for the faithful courage and endurance of Samuel
Lewis, who alone pushed on to the coastal settlements for aid, and,
returning, was just in time to rescue the other survivors. So bad was the
account given by thes