I could no longer remain, though Jimmy sat, and probably slept, in the scanty one tree’s shade, and seemed to pass the time as comfortably as though he were in a fine house.  In going up to the water two of the horses again fell and hurt themselves, but the old blear-eyed mare never slipped or fell.  At four p.m. we mounted, and rode down the glen until we got clear of the rough hills, when we turned upon our proper course for the ridges, which, however, we could not see.  In two or three miles we entered the sandhill regions once more, when it soon rose into hills.  The triodia was as thick and strong as it could grow.  The country was not, so to say, scrubby, there being only low bushes and scrubs on the sandhills, and casuarina trees of beautiful outline and appearance in the hollows.  When the horses got clear of the stones they began to eat everything they could snatch and bite at.

At fifteen miles from the gorge we encamped on a patch of dry grass.  The horses fed pretty well for a time, until the old mare began to think it time to be off, and she soon would have led the others back to the range.  She dreaded this country, and knew well by experience and instinct what agony was in store for her.  Jimmy got them back and short-hobbled them.  There were plenty of ants here, but nothing to be compared to the number in the gorge, and having to remove my blankets only three or four times, I had a most delightful night’s rest, although, of course, I did not sleep.  The horses were sulky and would not eat; therefore they looked as hollow as drums, and totally unfit to traverse the ground that was before them.  However, this had to be done, or at least attempted, and we got away early.  We were in the midst of the sandhills, and here they rose almost into mountains of sand.  It was most fatiguing to the horses, the thermometer 104 degrees in the shade when we rested at twenty-two miles.  Nor was this the hottest time of the day.  We had been plunging through the sand mountains, and had not sighted the ridges, for thirty-seven miles, till at length we found the nearest were pretty close to us.  They seemed very low, and quite unlikely to produce water.  Reaching the first, we ascended it, and I could see at a glance that any prospect of finding water was utterly hopeless, as these low ridges, which ran north and south, were merely a few oblique-lying layers of upheaved granite, not much higher than the sandhills which surrounded them, and there was no place where water could lodge even during rains.  Not a rise could be seen in any direction, except, of course, from where we had come.  We went on west five or six miles farther to the end of these, just about sundown:  and long, indeed, will that peculiar sunset rest in my recollection.  The sun as usual was a huge and glaring ball of fire that with his last beams shot hot and angry glances of hate at us, in rage at our defiance of his might.  It was so strange and so singular that only at this