we turned up a creek-channel, which proved to be a dreadful gorge, being choked up with huge boulders of red and white granite.  Among these I found a fine rock tarn; indeed, I might call it a marble bath, for the rock was almost pure white, and perfectly bare all round.  The water was considerably over our heads, and felt as cold as ice.  It was a dreadful place to get horses up to, and two of them fell two or three times on the glassy, shelving, and slippery rocks.  The old grey, Buggs, hurt himself a good deal.

Time seems to fly in these places, except when you want it to do so, and by the time the horses got down from the water the day was nearly gone.  The feed for them was very little better than at our last night’s camp, nor was the glen any less stony or rough.  The day was 12 degrees hotter than yesterday; the thermometer indicated 104 degrees.  The ants in this glen were frightful; they would not allow me a moment’s rest anywhere.  There was but one solitary eucalyptus or gum-tree, and in its scanty shade they swarmed in countless myriads.  The sun poured his fiery beams full down upon us, and it was not until he departed over the cliffs to the west that we had a moment’s respite; the place was a perfect oven.

I passed the time mostly in the marble bath, and then took a walk up to the top of the range and could see the hills I desired to visit; they now bore nearly south-west.  So long as the sun’s rays were pouring down upon their unsheltered hides, the horses would not attempt to eat, but when he departed they fed a little on the coarse vegetation.  This glen, like all the others in this range, swarmed with pigeons, and we got enough for breakfast at one shot.  During the hot months, I believe whites could live entirely on pigeons in this range.  At the camp at Sladen Water they came to the water in clouds, their very numbers sometimes preventing us getting a good shot, and we had been living entirely on them, for now we had no other meat.  Unfortunately, our ammunition is almost exhausted, but so long as it lasts we shall have birds.  When it is gone we must eat horseflesh, and should have been driven to do so before now, only for these birds.  I have an old horse now fattening for the knife, and I am sorry, i.e. happy, to say, whenever I inspect him he looks better.  The one I mean is the old sideways-going Terrible Billy.  Poor old creature!  To work so many years as he has done for man, and then to be eaten at last, seems a hard fate; but who or what can escape that inexorable shadow, death?

It may be the destiny of some of ourselves to be eaten; for I fully believe the natives of these regions look upon all living organisms as grist for their insatiable mills.  As night came on, I was compelled to lie down at last, but was so bitten and annoyed by the ants, that I had to keep moving about from place to place the whole night long, while the [in]sensible Jimmy lay sleeping and snoring, though swarmed over