nuation of the clay bank, at once found
ourselves in the scrub and amidst barrenness again; and at less than a
mile, on a north-west course, beheld the sand ridges once more rising
before us. I continued on this course, however, for eight miles, when I
turned to the north-east, in order to cut any watercourse that might be
in that direction, and to assure myself of the failure of the creek.
After riding for five miles, I turned to the south, with the intention of
ascending a sand hill at some distance, that swept the horizon in a
semicircular form and was much higher than any others. Mr. Poole had
informed me that he noticed a similar bank just before he made Lake
Torrens, and I was anxious to see if it hid any similar basin from my
view; but it did not. Sand hills of a similar kind succeeded it to the
westward, but there was no change of country. Although we had travelled
many miles, yet the zigzag course we had taken had been such that at this
point we were not more than sixteen miles from the pools we had left in
the morning; and as the day had been intolerably hot, and we had found no
water, I determined on returning to them; but I was obliged to stop for a
time for Flood, who complained of a violent pain in his head, occasioned
by the intense heat. There was no shelter, however, for him under the
miserable shrubs that surrounded us; but I stopped for half an hour,
during which the horses stood oppressed by languor, and without the
strength to lift up their heads, whilst their tails shook violently.
Being anxious to get to water without delay, I took a straight line for
the water-holes, and reached them at half-past 6 p.m., after an exposure,
from morning till night, to as great a heat as man ever endured; but if
the heat of this day was excessive, that of the succeeding one on which
we returned to Joseph was still more so. We reached our destination at 3
p.m., as we started early, and on looking at the thermometer fixed behind
a tree about five feet from the ground, I found the mercury standing at
132 degrees; on removing it into the sun it rose to 157 degrees. Only on
one occasion, when Mr. Browne and I were returning from the north, had
the heat approached to this; nor did I think that either men or animals
could have lived under it.

On the 20th we again crossed the ranges, and after a journey of 32 miles,
reached the lateral creek at their southern extremity, where I had rested
on my former journey. There was mo