About half an hour before sunset we came to the bed of a dry watercourse, the direction of which was from south-east to north, so that it was probably a tributary of the Arrowsmith.  We were fortunate enough to find a small pool of water in it, yet the large flights of birds of every description that came here for the purpose of drinking showed the rarity of water in these parts.  We made several attempts to get a shot at them but they were so wild, and we were so worn out and weak, that all our exertions were unsuccessful.  In the course of the evening one of the men made up my last pound of flour into a damper for me, and I supped on a spoonful of arrowroot.

Serious ROBBBRY by A rat.

April 13.

On waking up this morning I found that in the night a rat had gnawed a hole in the canvas bag in which my little damper was placed, and had eaten more than half of it; this was a very serious misfortune as all my provisions were now reduced to three table-spoonfuls of arrowroot and the morsel of damper left me by the rat.  As I had shared my provisions with the native my situation was far worse than that of any of the others, and he, poor fellow, had become so dispirited and weak that he was incapable of searching for his food.  Indeed the productions of the country through which he had hitherto passed were so different from those of the one in which he had lived that the various kinds of roots and vegetables were, with one or two exceptions, quite unknown to him.

We made a very good march of it this morning, having travelled nineteen miles in a nearly south direction before 12 o’clock.  Soon after starting we sighted Mount Perron, distant about two and twenty miles and, seen over the waste and barren plains which surrounded us, it was a very remarkable object.

We halted at noon for about two hours, during which time I made my breakfast with Kaiber, sharing my remaining portion of damper between us.  It was almost a satisfaction to me when it was gone, for, tormented by the pangs of hunger, as I had now been for many days, I found that nearly the whole of my time was passed in struggling with myself as to whether I should eat at once all the provisions I had left or refrain till a future hour.  Having completed this last morsel I occupied myself for a little with my journal, then read a few chapters in the New Testament and, having fulfilled these duties, I felt myself as contented and cheerful as I had ever been in the most fortunate moments of my life.

Gairdner’s range.

Soon after two P.M. we resumed our journey, travelling for about eight miles in a due south direction over plains similar to those we had passed yesterday and this morning, and then began to ascend a red sandstone range of the same description as the Perth ironstone and thinly studded with black bay trees.  I named this range Gairdner’s Range after my friend Gordon Gairdner, Esquire, of the Colonial Office and, after continuing a gradual ascent for about four miles, I found that we were in the neighbourhood of a forest, at the outskirts of which I chose a spot for our halting-place, which afforded plenty of firewood but was deficient in water.  As we had now however marched thirty-one miles without seeing water, and were all perfectly worn out, I judged it more prudent to halt where we were.