The hills were more detached than in other places, and much lower.  The brush swept over them, and we could see it stretching to the horizon on the distant plains between them.  Excepting where the nearer hills rose above it, that horizon was unbroken; nor were the hills, although detached groups still existed to the north-east, distinguishable from the dark plains round them, as the brush extended over all, and the same sombre hue pervaded everything.  I should still, however, have persevered in exploring that hopeless region; but my mind had for the last day or two been anxiously drawn to the state of the camp, and the straits to which I felt assured it would have been put, if Mr. Poole had not succeeded in finding water in greater quantity than that on which the people depended when Mr. Browne and I left them.  Having been twelve days absent, I felt convinced that the water in the creek had dried up, and thought it more than probable that Mr. Poole had been forced to move from his position.  Under such circumstances, I abandoned, for the time, any further examination of the north-east interior, and turning round to the south-west, passed up a flat rather than a valley between the hills, and halted on it at half-past 6 p.m.  On the 23rd, we continued on a south-west course, and gradually ascended the more elevated part of the range; at 2 p.m. reached the water-hole we discovered the day we crossed the hills to the little peaks.  Our journey back to the camp was only remarkable for the heat to which we were exposed.  We reached it on the 24th of the month, and were really glad to get under shelter of the tents.  All the water in the different creeks we passed in going out, had sunk many inches, and as I had feared, that at the camp had entirely vanished, and Mr. Poole having been obliged to dig a hole in the middle of the creek, was obtaining a precarious supply for the men, the cattle being driven to a neighbouring pond, which they had all but exhausted.

As the reader will naturally conclude, I was far from satisfied with the result of this last excursion.  It had indeed determined the cessation of high land to the north and north-east; for although I had not reached the termination of the ranges in the latter direction, no doubt rested on my mind but that they gradually fell to a level with the plains.  We had penetrated to lat. 28 degrees 43 minutes S., and to long. 141 degrees 4 minutes 30 seconds; but had found a country worse than that over which we had already passed—­a country, in truth, that under existing circumstances was perfectly impracticable.  Yet from appearances I could not but think that an inland sea existed not far from the point we had gained.  As I have already observed, the fall of all the creeks from Flood’s Creek had been to the eastward, and from what we could judge at our extreme north, the dip of the country was also to the eastward.  I thought it more than probable, therefore, that we were still in the valley of the Darling, and that if we could have persevered in a northerly course, we should have crossed to the opposite fall of waters, and to a decided change of country.