camped at or near some rain-water.  I was anxious to find out where he was; on the 31st of May I sent Alec Ross on the only track that went west, to find if any water existed at a place I had heard of about twenty-five miles to the west, and towards which the only road from here led.  Alec had not been gone long, when he returned with Mr. Moseley, who happened to be coming to the Elizabeth en route for Port Augusta.  He camped with us that night.  He informed me his men obtained water at some clay-pans, called Coondambo, near the edge of Lake Gairdner, another large salt depression similar to Lake Torrens, and that by following his horses’ tracks they would lead, first to a well where he had just succeeded in obtaining water at a depth of eighty-five feet, and thence, in seven miles farther, to the Coondambo clay-pans.  I was very glad to get this information, as even from Coondambo the only water to the west beyond it, that I knew of, was Wynbring, at a distance of 160 or 170 miles.

Leaving the Elizabeth on June the 2nd, we went sixteen miles nearly west, to a small clay water-hole, where we encamped.  On the 3rd we travelled twenty-five miles nearly west, passing a deserted sheep-station belonging to Mr. Litchfield about the middle of the day; the country was very poor, being open, bare, stony ground, with occasional low, flat-topped table-lands, covered very sparsely with salsolaceous vegetation.  We next arrived at the north-east corner of Lake Hart, and proceeded nearly west along its northern shore; thence by the southern shores of Lakes Hanson and Younghusband, all salt lakes, where one of the party must have been taken ill, for he suddenly broke out into a doggerel rhyme, remarking that:—­

   “We went by Lake Hart, which is laid on the chart,
    And by the Lake Younghusband too;
    We next got a glance on, the little Lake Hanson,
    And wished...”

Goodness only knows what he wished, but the others conveyed to him their wish that he should discontinue such an infliction on them.

On June the 6th we arrived at the place where Mr. Moseley had just finished his well; but his men had deserted the spot and gone somewhere else, to put down another shaft to the north-eastwards.  The well was between eighty and ninety feet deep, the water whitish but good; here we encamped on a bushy sort of flat.  The next morning, following some horse tracks about south-west, they took us to the Coondambo clay-pans; the water was yellow and very thick, but there was plenty of it for all our purposes, though I imagined it would not last Mr. Moseley and his men very long.  Two or three of his horses were running at this water; here were several large shallow, cane-grass clay flats which are also occasionally filled with rain-water, they and Coondambo being situated close to the northern shore of Lake Gairdner.