behind us, except that the next undulation that bounded the horizon was fifteen to eighteen miles away.  We had now come fifty-one miles from the Shoeing Camp; there was no probability of getting water in such a region.  To the west the horizon was bounded by what appeared a perfectly flat and level line running northwards.  This flat line to the west seemed not more than twenty-five to thirty miles away; between us and it were a few low stony hills.  Not liking the northern, I now decided to push over to the western horizon, which looked so flat.  I have said there were some stony hills in that direction; we reached the first in twenty miles.  The next was formed of nearly bare rock, where there were some old native gunyahs.  Searching about we found another of those extraordinary basins, holes, or cups washed out of the solid rock by ancient ocean’s force, ages before an all-seeing Providence placed His dusky children upon this scene, or even before the waters had sufficiently subsided to permit either animal or man to exist here.  From this singular cup we obtained a sufficient supply of that fluid so terribly scarce in this region.  We had to fill a canvas bucket with a pint pot to water our horses, and we outspanned for the remainder of the day at this exceedingly welcome spot.  There were a few hundred acres of excellent grass land, and the horses did remarkably well during the night.  The day had been very hot; the thermometer in the shade at this rock stood at 106 degrees.

This proved a most abominable camp; it swarmed with ants, and they kept biting us so continually, that we were in a state of perpetual motion nearly all the time we were there.  A few heat-drops of rain fell.  I was not sorry to leave the wretched place, which we left as dry as the surrounding void.  We continued our west course over sandhills and through scrub and spinifex.  The low ridges of which the western horizon was formed, and which had formerly looked perfectly flat, was reached in five miles; no other view could be got.  A mile off was a slightly higher point, to which we went; then the horizon, both north and west of the same nature, ran on as far as could be seen, without any other object upon which to rest the eye.  There were a few little gullies about, which we wasted an hour amongst in a fruitless search for water.  The Bitter Water Creek now lay south of us; I was not at all satisfied at our retreat from it.  I was anxious to find out where it went, for though we had spent several days in its neighbourhood, we had not travelled more than eight or ten miles down it; we might still get a bucket or two of water for our three horses where I had killed the little cob.  We therefore turned south in hopes that we might get some satisfaction out of that region at last.  We were now, however, thirty-nine or forty miles from the water-place, and two more from the Cob.  I was most anxious on account of the water at the Shoeing Camp; it might have become quite exhausted by this time, and where on earth would Gibson and Jimmy go?  The thermometer again to-day stood at 106 degrees in the shade.