After our meal we found a better supply of water in a creek about two miles southward, where there was both a rock reservoir and sand water.  We had now come about 130 miles from Sladen Water, and had found waters all the way; Mount Olga was again in sight.  The question was, is the water there permanent?  Digging would be of no avail there, it is all solid rock; either the water is procured on the surface or there is none.  I made this trip to the east, not with any present intention of retreat, but to discover whether there was a line of waters to retreat upon, and to become acquainted with as much country as possible.

(Illustration:  Mount Olga, from sixty miles to the west.)

The sight of Mount Olga, and the thoughts of retreating to the east, acted like a spur to drive me farther to the west; we therefore turned our backs upon Mount Olga and the distant east.  I named this gorge, where we found a good supply of water, Glen Robertson*, and the creek that comes from it, Casterton Creek.  Mount Olga, as I said, bore nearly due east; its appearance from here, which we always called the farthest east, was most wonderful and grotesque.  It seemed like five or six enormous pink hay-stacks, leaning for support against one another, with open cracks or fissures between, which came only about half-way down its face.  I am sure this is one of the most extraordinary geographical features on the face of the earth, for, as I have said, it is composed of several enormous rounded stone shapes, like the backs of several monstrous kneeling pink elephants.  At sixty miles to the west its outline is astonishing.  The highest point of all, which is 1500 feet above the surrounding country, looked at from here, presents the appearance of a gigantic pink damper, or Chinese gong viewed edgeways, and slightly out of the perpendicular.  We did not return to the scene of our fight and our dinner, but went about two miles northerly beyond it, when we had to take to the rough hills again; we had to wind in and out amongst these, and in four miles struck our outgoing tracks.  We found the natives had followed us up step by step, and had tried to stamp the marks of the horses’ hoofs out of the ground with their own.  They had walked four or five abreast, and consequently made a path more easy for us to remark.  We saw them raising puffs of smoke behind us, but did not anticipate any more annoyance from them.  We pushed on till dark, to the spot where we had met them in the morning; here we encamped without water.