The day was comparatively cool, 100 degrees.  The glen here is almost entirely choked up with tea-trees, and we had to cut great quantities of wood away so as to approach the water easily.  The tea-tree is the only timber here for firewood; many trees are of some size, being seven or eight inches through, but mostly very crooked and gnarled.  The green wood appears to burn almost as well as the dead, and forms good ash for baking dampers.  Again to-day we had our usual shock of earthquake and at the usual time.  Next day at three p.m., earthquake, quivering hills, broken and toppling rocks, with scared and agitated rock wallabies.  This seemed a very ticklish, if not extremely dangerous place for a depot.  Rocks overhung and frowned down upon us in every direction; a very few of these let loose by an earthquake would soon put a period to any further explorations on our part.  We passed a great portion of to-day (18th) in erecting a fine large bough-house; they are so much cooler than tents.  We also cleared several patches of rich brown soil, and made little Gardens (de Plantes), putting in all sorts of garden and other seeds.  I have now discovered that towards afternoon, when the heat is greatest the flow of water ceases in the creek daily; but at night, during the morning hours and up to about midday, the little stream flows murmuring on over the stones and through the sand as merrily as one can wish.  Fort Mueller cannot be said to be a pretty spot, for it is so confined by the frowning, battlemented, fortress-like walls of black and broken hills, that there is scarcely room to turn round in it, and attacks by the natives are much to be dreaded here.

We have had to clear the ground round our fort of the stones and huge bunches of triodia which we found there.  The slopes of the hills are also thickly clothed with this dreadful grass.  The horses feed some three or four miles away on the fine open grassy country which, as I mentioned before, surrounds this range.  The herbage being so excellent here, the horses got so fresh, we had to build a yard with the tea-tree timber to run them in when we wanted to catch any.  I still hope rain will fall, and lodge at Elder’s Creek, a hundred miles to the west, so as to enable me to push out westward again.  Nearly every day the sky is overcast, and rain threatens to fall, especially towards the north, where a number of unconnected ridges or low ranges lie.  Mr. Tietkens and I prepared to start northerly to-morrow, the 20th, to inspect them.

We got out in that direction about twenty miles, passed near a hill I named Mount Scott*, and found a small creek, but no water.  The country appeared to have been totally unvisited by rains.