A few drops of rain fell during the night, which made me regret that I had not our tarpaulins erected, though no more fell.  In the morning there was sultriness in the air though the sky was clear; the thermometer stood at 52 degrees, and at sunrise a smoky haze pervaded the whole sky.  Whilst we were packing up the horses this morning, the same two natives whom we saw last night, again made their appearance, bringing with them a third, who was painted, feathered, greased, and red-ochred, in, as they doubtless thought, the most alarming manner.  I had just mounted my horse, and rode towards them, thinking to get some more information from the warrior as to the course of the creek, etc., but when they saw the horse approaching they scampered off, and the bedizened warrior projected himself into the friendly branches of the nearest tree with the most astonishing velocity.  Perceiving that it was useless to try to approach them, without actually running them to earth, we left them; and crossing the river easily over its stony bed, we continued north-west towards a mountain in the ranges that traversed the horizon in that direction.  The river appeared to come from the same spot.  A breeze from the north-west caused the dust raised by the pack-horses, which we drove in a mob before us, travelling upon the loose soil where the spinifex had all been lately burnt, to blow directly in our faces.  At five miles we struck on a bend of a river, and we saw great volumes of smoke from burning grass and triodia rising in all directions.  The natives find it easier to catch game when the ground is bare, or covered only with a short vegetation, than when it is clothed with thick coarse grasses or pungent shrubs.  A tributary from the north, or east of north, joined the Finke on this course, but it was destitute of water at the junction.  Soon now the river swept round to the westward, along the foot of the hills we were approaching.  Here a tributary from the west joined, having a slender stream of water running along its bed.  It was exceedingly boggy, and we had to pass up along it for over two miles before we could find a place to cross to enable us to reach the main stream, now to the north of us.  I called this McMinn’s Creek.

On reaching the Finke we encamped.  In the evening I ascended a mountain to the north-westward of us.  It was very rough, stony, and precipitous, and composed of red sandstone; its summit was some 800 feet above our camp.  It had little other vegetation upon it than huge plots of triodia, of the most beautiful and vivid green, and set with the most formidable spines.  Whenever one moves, these spines enter the clothes in all directions, making it quite a torture to walk about among them.  From here I could see that the Finke turned up towards these hills through a glen, in a north-westerly direction.  Other mountains appeared to the north and north-west; indeed this seemed to be a range of mountains of great length