we came upon a small shallow kind of stony pan, where a little rain-water was yet lying, proving that the rains we had experienced in May, before leaving the western watershed, must have extended into the desert.  We reached this drop of water on the 25th of June, and the camels drank it all up while we rested on the 26th.  After five days’ more travelling over the same kind of desert as formerly described, except that the sand-mounds rose higher yet in front of us, still progressing eastwards, the well-remembered features of the Rawlinson Range and the terrible Mount Destruction rose at last upon my view.

On reaching the range, I suppose I may say that the exploring part of my expedition was at an end, for I had twice traversed Australia; and although many hundreds of miles had yet to be travelled before we should reach the abodes of civilisation, the intervening country had all been previously explored by myself.  For a full account of my former explorations into this region, I must refer my reader to the chapters on my second expedition.  The first water we reached in the Rawlinson Range was at a rock-hole about ten miles eastwards from the Circus water, the place from whence Gibson and I started to explore to the west.  His death, the loss of all the horses, and my struggles to regain my depot on foot, are they not written in the chronicles of that expedition?

On reaching my former depot at Fort McKellar, I found the whole place so choked up with shrubs and bushes, that it was quite impossible to camp there, without wasting a week in cutting the vegetation away, although it had formerly been sufficiently open for an explorer’s camp.  The spring was running as strong as ever.  The bridge had been washed away.  However, at less than a mile from it, there was Tyndall’s Spring, with an open shady space, among the clump of fine gum-trees, which gave us an excellent camping-place.  Here the camp remained for some days.  A line of green bulrushes fringed this spring.  While the main party camped here, I once more tried to find some remains or traces of my lost companion Gibson, taking with me only Tommy Oldham.  It was quite a forlorn hope, as Gibson had gone away with only one horse; and since we reached the range, we had passed over places where I knew that all the horses I then had with me had gone over the ground, but no signs of former horse-tracks could be seen, therefore the chance of finding any traces of a single animal was infinitesimal.  Tommy and I expended three days in trying to discover traces, but it was utterly useless, and we returned unsuccessful to the depot.