and heated region, into which we had penetrated, as effectually as if we had wintered at the Pole.  It was long indeed ere I could bring myself to believe that so great a misfortune had overtaken us, but so it was.  Providence had, in its allwise purposes, guided us to the only spot, in that wide-spread desert, where our wants could have been permanently supplied, but had there stayed our further progress into a region that almost appears to be forbidden ground.  The immediate effect, however, of our arrival at the Depot, was to relieve my mind from anxiety as to the safety of the party.  There was now no fear of our encountering difficulties, and perhaps perishing from the want of that life-sustaining element, without which our efforts would have been unavailing, for independently of the beautiful sheet of water, on the banks of which the camp was established, there was a small lagoon to the S.E. of us, and around it there was a good deal of feed, besides numerous water-holes in the rocky gully.  The creek was marked by a line of gum-trees, from the mouth of the glen to its junction with the main branch, in which, excepting in isolated spots, water was no longer to be found.  The Red Hill (afterwards called Mount Poole), bore N.N.W. from us, distant 3 1/2 miles; between us and it there were undulating plains, covered with stones or salsolaceous herbage, excepting in the hollows, wherein there was a little grass.  Behind us were level stony plains, with small sandy undulations, bounded by brush, over which the Black Hill, bearing S.S.E. from the Red Hill, was visible, distant 10 miles.  To the eastward the country was, as I have described it, hilly.  Westward at a quarter of a mile the low range, through which Depot Creek forces itself, shut out from our view the extensive plains on which it rises.  This range extended longitudinally nearly north and south, but was nowhere more than a mile and a half in breadth.  The geological formation of the range was slate, traversed by veins of quartz, its interstices being filled with magnesian limestone.  Steep precipices and broken rugged gullies alternated on either side of this creek, and in its bed there were large slabs of beautiful slate.  The precipices shewed the lateral formation with the rock split into the finest laminae, terminating in sharp points.  But neither on the ranges or on the plains behind the camp was there any feed for the cattle, neither were the banks of the creek or its neighbourhood to be put in comparison with Flood’s Creek in this respect, for around it there was an abundance as well as a variety of herbage.  Still the vegetation on the Depot Creek was vigorous, and different kinds of seeds were to be procured.  I would dwell on this fact the more forcibly, because I shall, at a future stage of this journey, have to remark on the state of the vegetation at this very spot, that is to say, when the expedition was on its return from the interior at the close of the year.