On the morning of the 13th we still pushed on, leaving, as before, a cask of water to pick up on our return.  I had been obliged to limit the horse to six gallons a day, but where he had been in the habit of drinking from 25 to 30, so small a quantity would not suffice.  We had not gone many miles when he shewed symptoms of exhaustion, and rather tottered than walked.  He took no pains to avoid anything, but threw Joseph into every bush he passed.  The country still continued unchanged, sand and spinifex were the universal covering of the land, and only round the edges of the little flats were a few stunted shrubs to be seen.  It was marvellous to me that such a country should extend to so great a distance without any change.  I could at no time see beyond a mile in any direction.  Several flights of parrots flew over our heads to the north-west, at such an elevation as led me to suppose they would not pitch near us; but not a bird of any kind did we see in the desert itself.  The day being exceedingly hot I stopped at one, rather from necessity than inclination, having travelled 12 or 14 miles.  Both Joseph and myself had walked the whole way, and our legs were full of the sharp ends of the spinifex, but it was more in mercy to poor Punch than to ourselves that I pulled up, and held a consultation with Joseph as to the prudence of taking the cart any further, when it was decided that our doing so would infallibly lead to Punch’s destruction.  According to my calculation we were now in latitude 28 degrees 9 minutes 0 seconds or thereabouts.  I had hoped to have advanced some 60 miles beyond this point, but now found that it would be impossible to do so.  There was no indication of a change of country from any rising ground near us, and as it was still early in the day I resolved on pushing forward until I should feel satisfied that I had passed into the 27th parallel; my reason for this being a desire to know what the character of the country, so far in the interior from, and in the same parallel as Moreton Bay, would be.  I had intended tethering Punch out, and walking with Joseph, but as he remonstrated with me, and it did not appear that my riding him would do the horse any harm, I mounted, though without a saddle, and taking our guns, with a quart of water, we commenced our journey.  We moved rapidly on, as I was anxious to return to the cart whilst there was yet daylight, to enable us to keep our tracks, but no material change took place in the aspect of the country.  We crossed sand-ridge after sand-ridge only to meet disappointment, and I had just decided on turning, when we saw at the distance of about a quarter of a mile from us, a little rounded hill some few feet higher than any we had ascended.  It was to little purpose however that we extended our ramble to it.  At about a mile from where we left the cart, we had crossed two or three small plains, if pieces of ground not a quarter of a mile long might be so termed, on which rhagodia