the mariner on the ocean—­“Full many a green spot needs must be in this wide waste of misery, Or the traveller worn and wan never thus could voyage on.”  But where was the oasis for us?  Where the bright region of rest?  And now, when days had many of them passed away, and no places had been met where water was, the party presented a sad and solemn procession, as though each and all of us was stalking slowly onward to his tomb.  Some murmurs of regret reached my ears; but I was prepared for more than that.  Whenever we camped, Saleh would stand before me, gaze fixedly into my face and generally say:  “Mister Gile, when you get water?” I pretended to laugh at the idea, and say.  “Water? pooh!  There’s no water in this country, Saleh.  I didn’t come here to find water, I came here to die, and you said you’d come and die too.”  Then he would ponder awhile, and say:  “I think some camel he die to-morrow, Mr. Gile.”  I would say:  “No, Saleh, they can’t possibly live till to-morrow, I think they will all die to-night.”  Then he:  “Oh, Mr. Gile, I think we all die soon now.”  Then I:  “Oh yes, Saleh, we’ll all be dead in a day or two.”  When he found he couldn’t get any satisfaction out of me he would begin to pray, and ask me which was the east.  I would point south:  down he would go on his knees, and abase himself in the sand, keeping his head in it for some time.  Afterwards he would have a smoke, and I would ask:  “What’s the matter, Saleh? what have you been doing?” “Ah, Mr. Gile,” was his answer, “I been pray to my God to give you a rock-hole to-morrow.”  I said, “Why, Saleh, if the rock-hole isn’t there already there won’t be time for your God to make it; besides, if you can get what you want by praying for it, let me have a fresh-water lake, or a running river, that will take us right away to Perth.  What’s the use of a paltry rock-hole?” Then he said solemnly, “Ah, Mr. Gile, you not religious.”

On the eleventh day the plains died off, and we re-entered a new bed of scrubs—­again consisting of mallee, casuarinas, desert sandal-wood, and quandong-trees of the same family; the ground was overgrown with spinifex.  By the night of the twelfth day from the dam, having daily increased our rate of progress, we had traversed scrubs more undulating than previously, consisting of the usual kinds of trees.  At sundown we descended into a hollow; I thought this would prove the bed of another salt lake, but I found it to be a rain-water basin or very large clay-pan, and although there were signs of the former presence of natives, the whole basin, grass, and herbage about it, were as dry as the desert around.  Having found a place where water could lodge, I was certainly disappointed at finding none in it, as this showed that no rain whatever had fallen here, where it might have remained, when we had good but useless showers immediately upon leaving the dam.  From the appearance of the vegetation no rains could possibly have visited this spot for many months, if not years.  The grass was white and dry, and ready to blow away with any wind.