3rd August.

The water at this pool near our camp being nearly consumed, and nothing but thick mud remaining, we proceeded down the creek in search of a better supply; but it was not until we had followed its dry sandy bed for three hours that we attained our object, and encamped at a small pool in one of the back channels, the principal bed of the creek being perfectly dry.  The country near the creek continues very level, and well grassed, but distant rocky hills are visible in almost every direction.  In approaching the Gulf of Carpentaria heavy dews and fogs have become more frequent in the mornings, when it is usually calm.  About 10.0 a.m. a breeze usually sets in from the eastward, varying from north to south-east; at sunset it falls calm, but commences again at 8.0 p.m. and blows moderately from the eastward for one or two hours; very thin misty clouds are frequent, and render the heat oppressive when they prevail.  According to my reckoning, we are now only fifty miles from the sea-coast, and therefore much nearer Dr. Leichhardt’s track than I could wish to traverse the country; but, however desirable a more inland route might be, it is evident, from the small size of the watercourses hitherto crossed, that we have been skirting a tableland which is doubtless a continuation of the desert into which we followed Sturt’s Creek, and the small altitude of the country in which the watercourses trending towards the Gulf take their rise precludes the existence of any considerable drainage towards the interior.

Latitude by a Trianguli Australis 16 degrees 14 minutes 45 seconds.

The MCARTHUR river.

4th August.

The general course of the creek being northerly, and our distance from the McArthur about 20 miles on the chart, steered south-east from 6.35 a.m., crossing many rocky sandstone ridges and hills, the strata of which dipped 20 degrees to 40 degrees to the west.  At noon from one of the higher ridges saw the valley of the McArthur River to the south-east; continuing our course, descended a small dry watercourse till 4.0 p.m., when we reached a large creek with a belt of casuarina, melaleuca and eucalypti along its banks.  The channel was dry and sandy, about twenty yards wide, but showed the marks of high floods.  Following the creek down for three-quarters of an hour found a small pool just sufficient for the supply of the party.  Just below our camp a creek fifteen yards wide joined the principal one from the south, and, from the general lay of the country, it was evident that we were now on the McArthur River of Leichhardt; but though from the steepness of the banks the floods frequently rise thirty to forty feet, the creek did not bear the character of one which would take its rise at any great distance inland of our track.  The country passed over was very thinly wooded with eucalypti of small growth, seldom more than one and a half feet in diameter and fifty feet high; a few