[Map.  Stuart’s Routes 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862; Burke and Wills’s Route 1860 and 1861.]

From this point the party passed into a sandy spinifex desert, which Stuart says was worse than Sturt’s; there had been a little salt-bush there, but here there was nothing but spinifex to be found, and the barren ground provided no food of any kind for the horses.

The state of affairs was becoming desperate with the little band, as their provisions were nearly finished; and though the leader was tempted to persist in the search for good pastoral country, he was at last forced to abandon the search and beat a hasty retreat.  Dense scrub and the same “dreary dismal desert,” as he calls it in his Journal, surrounded them day after day.  Tired out and half-starved they reached the coast, and had but two meals left to carry them to Streaky Bay, where they found relief at Gibson’s station.  Here the sudden change from starvation to a full diet invalided most of them, and Stuart himself was very ill for some days.  Finally they reached Thompson’s station at Mount Arden, and there Stuart’s first expedition terminated.

But this severe test only whetted Stuart’s appetite for further exploration, and in April, 1859, he made another start.  After crossing over some of the already-traversed country, Hergott, one of his companions, found the now well-known springs that bear his name.  Stuart crossed his former discovery of Chambers Creek, and made for the Davenport Range, discovered by Warburton, finding many of the mound springs that characterize some parts of the interior.  On the 6th of June he discovered a large creek, which he called the Neale.  It ran through very good country, and Stuart followed it down, hoping to find it increase in volume and value as he went.  In this he was not disappointed, as large plains covered with salt-bush and grass were found, and the party encountered several more springs.  After satisfying himself of the extent and economic value of the country he had found, Stuart was obliged to return; for his horses’ shoes had again worn out, and he had a lively and painful remembrance of the misery which his horses had suffered before from the lack of them.

In November of the same year, he made a third expedition in the vicinity of Lake Eyre, but there is little of interest attaching to the Journal of this trip, as his course was mostly over closely explored country.  He reached the Neale again, and instituted a survey of the promising pastoral country he had traversed during his last trip, approaching at times to within sight of what he calls in his Journal Lake Torrens, but which in reality was what is now known as Lake Eyre.  All these minor expeditions of Stuart’s may be looked upon as preparatory to his great struggle to find an available passage through the unknown fastnesses of the centre of the continent.

It was in 1860 that Stuart made the first of his daring and stubborn attempts to cross Australia from south to north.  The South Australian Government had offered a standing reward of 2,000 pounds for the man who should first succeed in this undertaking.