spared them from the casks.  I had deemed it prudent to send Joseph and Lewis back to the creek for a fresh supply, with orders to return and meet at a certain point, and there to await our arrival, for without this supply I felt satisfied we should have great difficulty as it was in getting our animals back to the creek.  We descended from the hill therefore to some green looking trees, of a foliage new to me, to rest for an hour before we turned back again.  There were neither flowers or fruit on the trees, but from their leaf and habit, I took them to be a species of the Juglans.  At sunset we mounted our horses and travelled to the edge of the acacia scrub to give our horses some of the grass, and halted in it for the night, but started early on the following morning to meet Joseph.  We reached the appointed place, about 10, but not finding him there continued to journey onwards, and at five miles met him.  We then stopped and gave the horses 12 gallons of water each, after which we tethered them out, but they were so restless that I determined to mount them, and pushing on reached the creek at half-past 1, a.m.  The animals requiring rest I remained stationary the next day, and was myself glad to keep in the shade, not that the day was particularly hot, but because I began to feel the effects of constant exposure.  Having expressed some opinion, however, that there might have been water to the north of us, in the direction whence the pelicans came, Mr. Browne volunteered to ride out, and accordingly with Flood left me about 10, but returned late in the afternoon without having found any.  He ascertained that the creek I had sent Flood to trace when Mr. Stuart went to sketch in the ranges, terminated in the barren plain we had crossed, and such, the reader will observe, is the general termination of all the creeks of these singular and depressed regions.

We returned to the camp on the 21st, and from that period to the end of the month I remained stationary, employed in various ways.  On the 24th and 29th we took different sets of lunars, which gave our longitude as before, nearly 141 degrees 29 minutes, the variation of the compass being 5 degrees 14 minutes East.

The month of April set in without any indication of a change in the weather.  It appeared as if the flood gates of Heaven were closed upon us for ever.  We now began to feel the effects of disappointment, and watched the sky with extreme anxiety, inso-much that the least cloud raised all our hopes.  The men were employed in various ways to keep them in health.  We planted seeds in the bed of the creek, but the sun burnt them to cinders the moment they appeared above the ground.  On the evening of the 3rd there was distant thunder, and heavy clouds to the westward.  I thought it might have been that some shower had approached sufficiently near for me to benefit by the surface water it would have left to push towards Lake Torrens, and therefore mounted my horse and rode away to the westward on the 4th, but returned on the night of the 7th in disappointment.  Time rolled on fast, and still we were unable to stir.  Mr. Piesse, who took great delight in strolling out with my gun, occasionally shot a new bird.