Dreams also, between sleeping and waking, passed swiftly through my brain, and in my lonely sleep I had real dreams, sweet, fanciful, and bright, mostly connected with the enterprise upon which I had embarked—­dreams that I had wandered into, and was passing through, tracts of fabulously lovely glades, with groves and grottos green, watered by never-failing streams of crystal, dotted with clusters of magnificent palm-trees, and having groves, charming groves, of the fairest of pines, of groves “whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm.”

   “And all throughout the night there reigned the sense
    Of waking dream, with luscious thoughts o’erladen;
    Of joy too conscious made, and too intense,
    By the swift advent of this longed-for aidenn.”

On awaking, however, I was forced to reflect, how “mysterious are these laws!  The vision’s finer than the view:  her landscape Nature never draws so fair as fancy drew.”  The morning was cold, the thermometer stood at 28 degrees, and now—­

   “The morn was up again, the dewy morn;
    With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
    Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
    And smiling, as if earth contained no tomb: 
    And glowing into day.”

With this charming extract from Byron for breakfast I saddled my horse, having nothing more to detain me here, intending to bring up the whole party as soon as possible.

(Illustration:  TIETKEN’S birthday creek and mount Carnarvon.)

(Illustration:  On birthday creek.)

I now, however, returned by a more southerly route, and found the scrubs less thick, and came to some low red rises in them.  Having travelled east, I now turned on the bearing for the tea-tree creek, where the party ought now to be.  At six miles on this line I came upon some open ground, and saw several emus.  This induced me to look around for water, and I found some clay-pans with enough water to last a week.  I was very well pleased, as this would save time and trouble in digging at the tea-tree.  The water here was certainly rather thick, and scarcely fit for human organisms, at least for white ones, though it might suit black ones well enough, and it was good enough for our horses, which was the greatest consideration.  I rested my horse here for an hour, and then rode to the tea-tree.  The party, however, were not there, and I waited in expectation of their arrival.  In about an hour Mr. Tietkens came and informed me that on his return to the camp the other day he had found a nice little water, six miles from here, and where the party was, and to which we now rode together.  At this agreeable little spot were the three essentials for an explorer’s camp—­that is to say, wood, water, and grass.  From there we went to my clay pans, and the next day to my lonely camp of dreams.  This, the 30th August, was an auspicious