beauty of absolute sterility that reigned here.  From this place I decided to send Saleh back with two camels, as this was the middle of the fourth day.  Saleh would have to camp by himself for at least two nights before he could reach the depot, and the thought of such a thing almost drove him distracted; I do not suppose he had ever camped out by himself in his life previously.  He devoutly desired to continue on with us, but go he must, and go he did.  We, however, carried the two casks that one of his camels had brought until we encamped for the fourth night, being now ninety miles from Ooldabinna.

After Saleh left us we passed only one more salt lake, and then the country became entirely be-decked with unbroken scrub, while spinifex covered the whole ground.  The scrubs consisted mostly of mallee, with patches of thick mulga, casuarinas, sandal-wood, not the sweet-scented sandal-wood of commerce, which inhabits the coast country of Western Australia, and quandong trees, another species of the sandal-wood family.  Although this was in a cool time of the year—­namely, near the end of the winter—­the heat in the day-time was considerable, as the thermometer usually stood as high as 96 degrees in the shade, it was necessary to completely shelter the casks from the sun; we therefore cut and fixed over them a thick covering of boughs and leaves, which was quite impervious to the solar ray, and if nothing disturbed them while we were absent, I had no fear of injury to the casks or of much loss from evaporation.  No traces of any human inhabitants were seen, nor were the usually ever-present, tracks of native game, or their canine enemy the wild dingo, distinguishable upon the sands of this previously untrodden wilderness.  The silence and the solitude of this mighty waste were appalling to the mind, and I almost regretted that I had sworn to conquer it.  The only sound the ear could catch, as hour after hour we slowly glided on, was the passage of our noiseless treading and spongy-footed “ships” as they forced their way through the live and dead timber of the hideous scrubs.  Thus we wandered on, farther from our camp, farther from our casks, and farther from everything we wished or required.  A day and a half after Saleh left us, at our sixth night’s encampment, we had left Ooldabinna 140 miles behind.  I did not urge the camels to perform quick or extraordinary daily journeys, for upon the continuance of their powers and strength our own lives depended.  When the camels got good bushes at night, they would fill themselves well, then lie down for a sleep, and towards morning chew their cud.  When we found them contentedly doing so we knew they had had good food.  I asked Alec one morning, when he brought them to the camp, if he had found them feeding; he replied, “Oh, no, they were all lying down chewing their kid.”  Whenever the camels looked well after this we said, “Oh, they are all right, they’ve been chewing their ‘kid.’”