We had not ridden far on the following morning when a partial change was perceptible in the aspect of the country.  The flats became broader and the sand hills lower, but this change was temporary.  We gradually rose somewhat from the general level, and crossed several sand hills, higher than any we had seen.  These sand hills had very precipitous sides and broken summits, and being of a bright red colour, they looked in the distance like long lines of dead brick walls, being perfectly bare, or sparingly covered with spinifex at the base.  They succeeded each other so rapidly, that it was like crossing the tops of houses in some street; but they were much steeper to the eastward than to the westward, and successive gales appeared to have lowered them, and in some measure to have filled up the intervening flats with the sand from their summits.

The basis of the country was sandstone, on which clay rested in a thin layer, and on this clay the sandy ridges reposed.

We overtook Mr. Browne about half an hour before sunset, and all halted together, when the men had completed their tenth mile.

On the 1st of August we did not find the country so heavy or so wet as it had been.  It was indeed so open and denuded of every thing like a tree or bush, that we had some difficulty in finding wood to boil our tea.  In the afternoon when we halted the men had chained 46 miles on the new bearing, but as yet we could not see any range or hill to the westward.

About two hours before we halted Mr. Browne and I surprised some natives on the top of a sand hill, two of them saw us approaching and ran away, the third could not make his escape before we were upon him, but he was dreadfully alarmed.  In order to allay his fears Mr. Browne dismounted and walked up to him, whilst I kept back.  On this the poor fellow began to dance, and to call out most vehemently, but finding that all he could do was to no purpose he sat down and began to cry.  We managed however to pacify him, so much that he mustered courage to follow us, with his two companions, to our halting place.  These wanderers of the desert had their bags full of jerboas which they had captured on the hills.  They could not indeed have had less than from 150 to 200 of these beautiful little animals, so numerous are they on the sand hills, but it would appear that the natives can only go in pursuit of them after a fall of rain, such as that we had experienced.  There being then water, the country, at other times impenetrable, is then temporarily thrown open to them, and they traverse it in quest of the jerboa and other quadrupeds.  Our friends cooked all they had in hot sand, and devoured them entire, fur, skin, entrails and all, only breaking away the under jaw and nipping off the tail with their teeth.

They absolutely managed before sunset to finish their whole stock, and then took their departure, having, I suppose, gratified both their appetite and their curiosity.  They were all three circumcised and spoke a different language from that of the hill natives, and came, they told us, from the west.