Although we had left the immediate spot at which the kangaroo flies (cabarus) seemed to be collected, I did not expect that we should have got rid of them so completely as we did.  None of them were seen during the day; a proof that they were entirely local.  They were about half the size of a common house fly, had flat brown bodies, and their bite, although sharp and piercing, left no irritation after it.

About noon we stopped at the creek side to take some refreshment.  The country bore an improved appearance around us, and the cattle found abundance of pasture.  It was evident that the creek had been numerously frequented by the natives, although no recent traces of them could be found.  It had a bed of coarse red granite, of the fragments of which the natives had constructed a weir for the purpose of taking fish.  The appearance of this rock in so isolated a situation, is worthy of the consideration of geologists.

Desolation of the country.

The promise of improvement I have noticed, gradually disappeared as we proceeded on our day’s journey, and we at length found ourselves once more among brushes, and on the edge of plains, over which the rhagodia prevailed.  Nothing could exceed in dreariness the appearance of the tracks through which we journeyed, on this and the two following days.  The creek on which we depended for a supply of water, gave such alarming indications of a total failure, that I at one time, had serious thoughts of abandoning my pursuit of it.  We passed hollow after hollow that had successively dried up, although originally of considerable depth; and, when we at length found water, it was doubtful how far we could make use of it.  Sometimes in boiling it left a sediment nearly equal to half its body; at other times it was so bitter as to be quite unpalatable.  That on which we subsisted was scraped up from small puddles, heated by the sun’s rays; and so uncertain were we of finding water at the end of the day’s journey, that we were obliged to carry a supply on one of the bullocks.  There was scarcely a living creature, even of the feathered race, to be seen to break the stillness of the forest.  The native dogs alone wandered about, though they had scarcely strength to avoid us; and their melancholy howl, breaking in upon the ear at the dead of the night, only served to impress more fully on the mind the absolute loneliness of the desert.

It appeared, from their traces that the natives had lingered on this ground, on which they had perhaps been born, as long as it continued to afford them a scanty though precarious subsistence; but that they had at length been forced from it.  Neither fish nor muscles remained in the creek, nor emus nor kangaroos on the plains.  How then could an European expect to find food in deserts through which the savage wandered in vain?  There is no doubt of the fate that would have overtaken any one of the party who might have strayed away, and I was happy to find that Norman’s narrow escape had made a due impression on the minds of his comrades.