No water had yet been discovered, nor had any place where it could lodge been seen, even if the latter rain itself descended upon us, except indeed in the beds of the salt-lakes, where it would immediately have been converted into brine.  On the seventh day of our march we had accomplished fifteen miles, when our attention was drawn to a plot of burnt spinifex, surrounded by the recent foot-prints of natives.  This set us to scan the country in every direction where any view could be obtained.  Alec Ross climbed a tree, and by the aid of field-glasses discovered the existence of a fall of country into a kind of hollow, with an apparently broken piece of open grassy ground some distance to the south-west.  I determined to go to this spot, whatever might be the result, and proceeded towards it; after travelling five miles, and closely approaching it, I was disgusted to find that it was simply the bed of a salt-lake, but as we saw numerous native foot-prints and the tracks of emus, wild dogs, and other creatures, both going to and coming from it, we went on until we reached its lonely shore.  There was an open space all round it, with here and there a few trees belonging to the surrounding scrubs that had either advanced on to, or had not receded from the open ground.  The bed of the lake was white, salty-looking, and dry; There was, however, very fine herbage round the shores and on the open ground.  There was plenty of the little purple pea-vetch, the mignonette plant, and Clianthus Dampierii, or Sturt’s desert-pea, and we turned our four fine camels out to graze, or rather browse, upon whatever they chose to select, while we looked about in search of the water we felt sure must exist here.

The day was warm for this time of year, the thermometer standing at 95 degrees in the shade.  But before we went exploring for water we thought it well to have some dinner.  The most inviting looking spot was at the opposite or southern end of the lake, which was oval-shaped; we had first touched upon it at its northern end.  Alec Ross walked over to inspect that, and any other likely places, while I dug wells in the bed of the lake.  The soil was reasonably good and moist, and on tasting it I could discover no taint of salt, nor had the surface the same sparkling incrustation of saline particles that I had noticed upon all the other lake-beds.  At ten or eleven inches I reached the bedrock, and found the soil rested upon a rotten kind of bluish-green slate, but no water in the numerous holes I dug rewarded me, so I gave it up in despair and returned to the camp to await Alec’s report of his wanderings.  On the way I passed by some black oak-trees near the margin, and saw where the natives had tapped the roots of most of them for water.  This I took to be a very poor sign of any other water existing here.  I could see all round the lake, and if Alec was unsuccessful there was no other place to search.  Alec was a long time away, and it was already late when he returned,