and attacks from the natives, that may at any time cause the death of some of the people engaged in it; but I believe want of judgment, or knowledge, or courage in individuals, often brought about their deaths.  Death, however, is a thing that must occur to every one sooner or later.”  To this he replied, “Well, I shouldn’t like to die in this part of the country, anyhow.”  In this sentiment I quite agreed with him, and the subject dropped.  At eleven miles we were not only clear of the range, but had crossed to the western side of Lake Christopher, and were fairly enclosed in the sandhills, which were of course covered with triodia.  Numerous fine casuarinas grew in the hollows between them, and some stunted blood-wood-trees, (red gum,) ornamented the tops of some of the sandhills.  At twenty-two miles, on a west course, we turned the horses out for an hour.  It was very warm, there was no grass.  The horses rested in the shade of a desert oak-tree, while we remained under another.  These trees are very handsome, with round umbrageous tops, the leaves are round and fringe-like.  We had a meal of smoked horse; and here I discovered that the bag with our supply of horseflesh in it held but a most inadequate supply for two of us for a week, there being scarcely sufficient for one.  Gibson had packed it at starting, and I had not previously seen it.  The afternoon was oppressively hot—­at least it always seems so when one is away from water.  We got over an additional eighteen miles, making a day’s stage of forty.

The country was all sandhills.  The Rawlinson Range completely disappeared from view, even from the tops of the highest sandhills, at thirty-five miles.  The travelling, though heavy enough, had not been so frightful as I had anticipated, for the lines of sandhills mostly ran east and west, and by turning about a bit we got several hollows between them to travel in.  Had we been going north or south, north-easterly or south-westerly, it would have been dreadfully severe.  The triodia here reigns supreme, growing in enormous bunches and plots, and standing three and four feet high, while many of the long dry tops are as high as a man.  This gives the country the appearance of dry grassy downs; and as it is dotted here and there with casuarina and blood-wood-trees, and small patches of desert shrubs, its general appearance is by no means displeasing to the eye, though frightful to the touch.  No sign of the recent presence of natives was anywhere visible, nor had the triodia been burnt for probably many years.  At night we got what we in this region may be excused for calling a grass flat, there being some bunches of a thin and wiry kind of grass, though white and dry as a chip.  I never saw the horses eat more than a mouthful or two of it anywhere, but there was nothing else, and no water.

22Nd.