ver, our route lay
through country untrodden by any white man, with the exception of Ernest
Giles, whose track we should cross at right angles, about one hundred
miles North of Alexander Spring. But unless we sighted the Alfred and
Marie Range, named by him, we should have no guide, excepting our
position on the chart, to show us where we crossed the path of a caravan
which marched through the wilderness twenty years before.

To give a description of the country that we now encountered, from day to
day, would be so deadly monotonous that the kindest reader would hardly
forgive me; and even if it could serve any useful purpose I should
hesitate to recount the daily scene of solitude. A general account of
this country, followed by any incidents or personal adventures worthy of
notice, will suffice to give an idea of this dreary region.

From lat. 26 degrees S. to lat. 22 degrees 40 minutes there stretches a
vast desert of rolling sand, not formed in ridges like those already
described, nor heaped up with the regularity of those met with further
north. "Downs" I think is the only term that describes properly the
configuration of the country. "The Great Undulating Desert of Gravel"
would meet all requirements should it be thought worthy of a name. In
this cheerless and waterless region we marched from August 22nd until
September 17th seeing no lakes, nor creeks, nor mountains; no hills even
prominent enough to deserve a name, excepting on three occasions. Day
after day over open, treeless expanses covered only by the never-ending
spinifex and strewn everywhere with pebbles and stones of ferruginous
sandstone, as if some mighty giant had sown the ground with seed in the
hope of raising a rich crop of hills. The spinifex here cannot grow its
coarse, tall blades of grass--the top growth is absent and only round
stools of spines remain; well was it named Porcupine Grass!

Occasional clumps of mulga break the even line of the horizon, and, in
the valleys, thickets or belts of bloodwood are seen. In these hollows one
may hope to find feed for the camels, for here may grow a few quondongs,
acacia, and fern-tree shrubs, and in rare cases some herbage. The beefwood
tree, the leaves of which camels, when hard pressed, will eat, alone
commands the summit of the undulations. As for animal life--well, one
forgets that life exists, until occasionally reminded of the fact by a
bounding spinifex rat, frightened from his nest. Day after da