walked. He took no pains to avoid anything, but threw Joseph into every
bush he passed. The country still continued unchanged, sand and spinifex
were the universal covering of the land, and only round the edges of the
little flats were a few stunted shrubs to be seen. It was marvellous to
me that such a country should extend to so great a distance without any
change. I could at no time see beyond a mile in any direction. Several
flights of parrots flew over our heads to the north-west, at such an
elevation as led me to suppose they would not pitch near us; but not a
bird of any kind did we see in the desert itself. The day being
exceedingly hot I stopped at one, rather from necessity than inclination,
having travelled 12 or 14 miles. Both Joseph and myself had walked the
whole way, and our legs were full of the sharp ends of the spinifex, but
it was more in mercy to poor Punch than to ourselves that I pulled up,
and held a consultation with Joseph as to the prudence of taking the cart
any further, when it was decided that our doing so would infallibly lead
to Punch's destruction. According to my calculation we were now in
latitude 28 degrees 9 minutes 0 seconds or thereabouts. I had hoped to
have advanced some 60 miles beyond this point, but now found that it
would be impossible to do so. There was no indication of a change of
country from any rising ground near us, and as it was still early in the
day I resolved on pushing forward until I should feel satisfied that I
had passed into the 27th parallel; my reason for this being a desire to
know what the character of the country, so far in the interior from, and
in the same parallel as Moreton Bay, would be. I had intended tethering
Punch out, and walking with Joseph, but as he remonstrated with me, and
it did not appear that my riding him would do the horse any harm, I
mounted, though without a saddle, and taking our guns, with a quart of
water, we commenced our journey. We moved rapidly on, as I was anxious to
return to the cart whilst there was yet daylight, to enable us to keep
our tracks, but no material change took place in the aspect of the
country. We crossed sand-ridge after sand-ridge only to meet
disappointment, and I had just decided on turning, when we saw at the
distance of about a quarter of a mile from us, a little rounded hill some
few feet higher than any we had ascended. It was to little purpose
however that we extended our ramble to it. At about a mile f