path, and at five or seven miles from the lagoon we pulled up for the night in a small confined valley in which there was a little grass, our poor horses sadly jaded and fatigued, and our cart in a very rickety state.  We could not well have been in a more trying situation, and as Mr. Browne, and Lewis (one of the men I had with me), went to examine the neighbourhood from a knoll not far off, while there was yet light, I could not but reflect on the singular fatality that had attended us.  I had little hope of finding water, and doubted in the event of disappointment whether we should get any of the horses back to the Fish-pond, the nearest water in our rear.  Mr. Browne was late in returning to me, but the news he had to communicate dispelled all my fears.  He had, he told me, from the summit of the knoll to which he went, observed something glittering in a dark looking valley about three miles to the N.W., and had walked down to ascertain what it was, when to his infinite delight he found that it was a pool of water, covering no small space amongst rocks and stones.  It was too late to avail ourselves, however, of this providential discovery; but we were on our way to the place at an early hour.  There we broke our fast, and I should have halted for the day to repair the cart, but there was little or no grass in the valley for the horses, so that we moved on after breakfast; but coming at less than a mile to a little grassy valley in which there was likewise water, we stopped, not only to give the animals a day of rest, and to repair the cart, but to examine the country, and to satisfy ourselves as to the nature of the sudden and remarkable change it had undergone.  With this view, as soon as the camp was formed, and the men set to repair the cart, Mr. Browne and I walked to the extremity of a sandy ridge that bore N.N.W. from us, and was about two miles distant.  On arriving at this point we saw an immense plain, occupying more than one half of the horizon, that is to say, from the south round to the eastward of north.  A number of sandy ridges, similar to that on which we stood, abutted upon, and terminated in this plain like so many head lands projecting into the sea.  The plain itself was of a dark purple hue, and from the elevated point on which we stood appeared to be perfectly level.

There was a line of low trees far away upon it to the N.E.; and to the north, at a great distance, the sun was shining on the bright point of a sand hill.  The plain was otherwise without vegetation, and its horizon was like that of the ocean.  In the direction I was about to proceed, nothing was to be seen but the gloomy stone-clad plain, of an extent such as I could not possibly form any just idea.  Ignorant of the existence of a similar geographical feature in any other part of the world, I was at a loss to divine its nature.  I could not however pause as to what was to be done, but on our return to the party prepared to cross it.  I was fully aware, before