anderer, for we had seen very few either of these birds or
kangaroos in these trackless solitudes.

On the morning of the 10th we were up early, and had loaded the cart with
69 gallons of water before breakfast, when Joseph and I took our
departure, and Mr. Stuart with Flood returned to the hills. I had
selected one of our best horses for this journey, an animal I had
purchased from Mr. Frew of Adelaide. He was strong, powerful, and in good
condition, therefore well qualified for the journey. I had determined on
keeping a general north course, but in the kind of country in which I
soon found myself it was impossible to preserve a direct line. At about
four miles from the creek the brush became thick, and the country sandy,
and at six miles the sand ridges commenced. Wishing to ease the horse as
much as possible, Joseph endeavoured to round them by keeping on the
intervening flats, but this necessarily lengthened the day's journey, and
threw me more to the eastward than I had intended. A noon I halted for
two hours, and then pushed on, the day being cool, with the wind as it
had been for the last three or four days from the south. Had the country
continued as it was, we might have got on tolerably, but as we advanced
it changed greatly for the worse. We lost the flats, on a general coating
of sand thickly matted with spinifex, through which it was equally
painful to ourselves and poor Punch to tread. We crossed small sandy
basins or hollows, and were unable to see to any distance. The only trees
growing in this terrible place were a few acacias in the hollows, and
some straggling melaleuca, with hakeae and one or two other common
shrubs, all of low growth; there was no grass, neither were the few herbs
that grew on the hollows such as the horse would eat. We stopped a little
after sunset, having journeyed about 22 miles, on a small flat on which
there were a few acacias, and some low silky grass as dry as a chip, so
that if we had not been provident in bringing some oats poor Punch would
have gone without his supper. A meridian altitude of Capella placed us in
lat. 28 degrees 41 minutes 0 seconds. Our longitude by account being 141
degrees 15 minutes E. When I rose at daylight on the following morning, I
observed that the horse had eaten but little of the dry and withered food
on which he had been tethered; however, in consequence of our tank
leaking, I was enabled to give him a good drink, when he seemed to
revive, but n