twelve o’clock the thermometer stood at 94 degrees in the shade.  The trend of this little creek, and the valley in which it exists, is to the south-east.  Having found water here, we were prepared to find numerous traces of natives, and soon saw old camps and wurleys, and some recent footmarks.  I was exceedingly gratified to find this water, as I hoped it would eventually enable me to get out of the wretched bed of sand and scrub into which we had been forced since leaving the Finke, and which evidently occupies such an enormous extent of territory.  Our horses fed all night close at hand, and we were in our saddles early enough.  I wanted to go west, and the further west the better; but we decided to follow the creek and see what became of it, and if any more waters existed in it.  We found that it meandered through a piece of open plain, splendidly grassed, and delightful to gaze upon.  How beautiful is the colour of green!  What other colour could even Nature have chosen with which to embellish the face of the earth?  How, indeed, would red, or blue, or yellow pall upon the eye!  But green, emerald green, is the loveliest of all Nature’s hues.  The soil of this plain was good and firm.  The creek had now worn a deep channel, and in three miles from where we camped we came upon the top of a high red bank, with a very nice little water-hole underneath.  There was abundance of water for 100 or 200 horses for a month or two, and plenty more in the sand below.  Three other ponds were met lower down, and I believe water can always be got by digging.  We followed the creek for a mile or two farther, and found that it soon became exhausted, as casuarina and triodia sandhills environed the little plain, and after the short course of scarcely ten miles, the little creek became swallowed up by those water-devouring monsters.  This was named Laurie’s Creek.

There was from 6000 to 10,000 acres of fine grass land in this little plain, and it was such a change from the sterile, triodia, and sandy country outside it, I could not resist calling it the Vale of Tempe.  We left the exhausted creek, and in ten miles from our camp we entered on and descended into another valley, which was open, but had no signs of any water.  From a hill I saw some ridges stretching away to the south and south-west, and to the west also appeared broken ridges.  I decided to travel about south-west, as it appeared the least stony.  In eight miles we had met the usual country.  At eighteen we turned the horses out for an hour on a burnt patch, during which the thermometer stood at 94 degrees in the shade; we then left for some ridges through a small gap or pass between two hills, which formed into a small creek-channel.  As it was now dark, we camped near the pass, without water, having travelled thirty-five miles.  In the morning we found the country in front of us to consist of a small well grassed plain, which was as green, as at the last camp.  The horses rambled in search of water up into a small