Having marked out the best passage I could
find to this point for the bullock teams I descended to the valley before
me and, after following it about four miles, the hollows in the dry bed
of the rivulet appeared moist.

LUXURY OF POSSESSING WATER AFTER LONG PRIVATION.

At two miles further I found water in the crevices of a rock, and a
little lower still abundance for the cattle in a large pond. After
watering my thirsty horse I galloped back with the encouraging tidings to
the party, and by eleven o'clock we had encamped beside the water, with
the agreeable certainty of obtaining breakfast, and with excellent
appetites for it.

LIFELESS APPEARANCE OF THE VALLEYS.

We had passed through valleys, on first descending from the mountains,
where the yellow oat-grass (or Anthisteria) resembled a ripe crop of
grain. But this resemblance to the emblem of plenty made the desolation
of these hopeless solitudes only the more apparent, abandoned as they
then were alike by man, beast, and bird. No living thing remained in
these valleys, for water, that element so essential to life, was a want
too obvious in the dismal silence (for not an insect hummed) and the
yellow hues of withering vegetation.

We had at length emerged from these arid valleys, and entered upon an
open and more promising country. Our boats and heavily laden carts had
crossed all the mountains in our way without any accident, and we had
water in abundance.

It is on occasions such as these that the adventurer has intervals of
enjoyment which amply reward him for laborious days of hardship and
privation. The sense of gratification and repose is intense in such
extreme cases, and cannot be known to him whose life is counted out in a
monotonous succession of hours of eating and sleeping within a house;
whose food is adulterated by spices, and sauces, intolerable to real
hunger--and whose drink, instead of the sweet refreshing distillation
from the heavens, consists of vile artificial extracts, loathed by the
really thirsty man with whom the pure element resumes its true value, and
establishes its real superiority over every artificial beverage.

ASCEND MOUNT JUSON WITH MR. CUNNINGHAM.

April 11.

At seven o'clock I proceeded with Mr. Cunningham to the summit of a cone,
bare of timber, which I had observed from the Canobolas, and which bore
138 degrees east of north from our camp, distant about six miles. The
ascent was easy, and from the summit (on which M