The lame horses are worse:  the poisonous mulga must be in the wounds, but I can’t get it out.  What a pleasure it is, not only to have plenty of water to drink, but actually to have sufficient for a bath!  I told Robinson of my views regarding him, but said he must yet remain until some eastern waters could be found.  On the 30th October, Mr. Carmichael and I, with three fresh horses, started again.  In my travels southerly I had noticed a conspicuous range of some elevation quite distinct from the ridges at which our camp was fixed, and lying nearly east, where an almost overhanging crag formed its north-western face.  This range I now decided to visit.  To get out of the ridges in which our creek exists, we had to follow the trend of a valley formed by what are sometimes called reaphook hills; these ran about east-south-east.  In a few miles we crossed an insignificant little creek with a few gum-trees; it had a small pool of water in its bed:  the valley was well grassed and open, and the triodia was also absent.  A small pass ushered us into a new valley, in which were several peculiar conical hills.  Passing over a saddle-like pass, between two of them, we came to a flat, open valley running all the way to the foot of the new range, with a creek channel between.  The range appeared very red and rocky, being composed of enormous masses of red sandstone; the upper portion of it was bare, with the exception of a few cypress pines, moored in the rifled rock, and, I suppose, proof to the tempest’s shock.  A fine-looking creek, lined with gum-trees, issued from a gorge.  We followed up the channel, and Mr. Carmichael found a fine little sheet of water in a stony hole, about 400 yards long and forty yards wide.  This had about four feet of water in it; the grass was green, and all round the foot of the range the country was open, beautifully grassed, green, and delightful to look at.  Having found so eligible a spot, we encamped:  how different from our former line of march!  We strolled up through the rocky gorge, and found several rock reservoirs with plenty of water; some palm-like Zamias were seen along the rocks.  Down the channel, about south-west, the creek passed through a kind of low gorge about three miles away.  Smoke was seen there, and no doubt it was an encampment of the natives.  Since the heavy though dry thunderstorm at Glen Thirsty, the temperature has been much cooler.  I called this King’s Creek.  Another on the western flat beyond joins it.  I called the north-west point of this range Carmichael’s Crag.  The range trended a little south of east, and we decided to follow along its southern face, which was open, grassy, and beautifully green; it was by far the most agreeable and pleasant country we had met.

(Illustration:  Penny’s creek.)