small sandy basins or hollows, and were unable to see to any distance.  The only trees growing in this terrible place were a few acacias in the hollows, and some straggling melaleuca, with hakeae and one or two other common shrubs, all of low growth; there was no grass, neither were the few herbs that grew on the hollows such as the horse would eat.  We stopped a little after sunset, having journeyed about 22 miles, on a small flat on which there were a few acacias, and some low silky grass as dry as a chip, so that if we had not been provident in bringing some oats poor Punch would have gone without his supper.  A meridian altitude of Capella placed us in lat. 28 degrees 41 minutes 0 seconds.  Our longitude by account being 141 degrees 15 minutes E. When I rose at daylight on the following morning, I observed that the horse had eaten but little of the dry and withered food on which he had been tethered; however, in consequence of our tank leaking, I was enabled to give him a good drink, when he seemed to revive, but no sooner commenced pulling than he perspired most profusely.  We kept a more regular course than on the previous day, over a country that underwent no change.  Before we started I left a nine gallon cask of water in a small flat to ease the horse, and as the water in the tank had almost all leaked out, his load was comparatively light.  Still it was a laborious task to draw the cart over such a country.  Fortunately for us the weather was cool, as the wind continued south, for I do not know what we should have done if we had been exposed to the same heat Mr. Browne and myself had experienced on our return from the little stony ranges now about 10 miles to the westward of us.  A little before noon the wind shifted to the N.E.; I had at this time stopped to rest the horse, but we immediately experienced a change of temperature, and the thermometer which stood at 81 degrees rose before we again started to 93 degrees, and at half-past three had attained 119 degrees.  We were then in one of the most gloomy regions that man ever traversed.  The stillness of death reigned around us, no living creature was to be heard; nothing visible inhabited that dreary desert but the ant, even the fly shunned it, and yet its yielding surface was marked all over with the tracks of native dogs.

We started shortly after noon, and passed a pointed sand-hill, from whence we could not only see the stony range but also the main range of hills.  The little peak on which Mr. Browne and I took bearings on our last journey bore 150 degrees, the pass through which we had descended into the plains 170 degrees, when I turned however to take bearings of the stony range it had disappeared, having been elevated by refraction above its true position.  It bore about N.W. 1/2 W., distant from eight to nine miles.  It was again some time after sunset before we halted, on a small flat that might contain two or at the most three acres.  There was some silky grass upon it, but this I knew the horse would not eat, neither had I more than a pint of oats to give him.  Our latitude here was 28 degrees 22 minutes 0 seconds.