No rain had as yet fallen, but every day the heat was increasing:  the thermometer rising, even thus early in the season, to 98 degrees and 100 degrees in the shade, and the wind keeping steadily to the E.S.E.  The country was so dry, and the largest pools of water had so diminished in quantity, that I doubted whether or not I should be able to get on, since as it was I should have to travel the first 86 miles without water, there being none in any other direction to the north of us.  Even the large sheet in the first creek, to which I proposed going, had fearfully shrunk.  But what gave me most uneasiness, was the reduced state of water on which the men and animals depended.  From a fine broad sheet it was now confined within the limits of its own narrow channel, and I felt satisfied that if I should be absent many weeks, Mr. Browne would be obliged to abandon his position.  Foreseeing this contingency, I arranged with him that in the event of his finding it necessary to retire, he should fall back on the little creek, near the old Depot.  That before he finally broke up the camp, he should dig a hole in some favourable part of the creek into which the water he might leave would drain, so as to insure on my return as much as possible, and we marked a tree under which he was to bury a bottle, with a letter in it to inform me of his intended movements.  Nothing could have been more marked or more attentive than Mr. Browne’s manner to me, and I am sure he saw me mount my horse to depart with sincere regret; but the interval between the conclusion of these arrangements and the day fixed on to resume my labours soon passed over, although I deferred it to the 9th, in consequence of Flood’s assuring me that the horses required the additional rest.

I had, indeed, been the more disposed to postpone the day of my departure, because I hoped, from appearances, that rain would fall, but I was disappointed.  On the 6th it was very close, and heavy clouds passed over us from the N.E., our rainy quarter, towards the Mount Serle ranges, but still no rain fell on the depressed and devoted region in which we were.  At eight, however, it rained slightly for about a quarter of an hour, and the horizon was black with storm clouds; all night heavy thunder rolled in the distance, both to the west and east of us; my ear caught that joyful sound as I laid on my mattress, and I fervently prayed that it might be the precursor of a fall.

I could not but hope, that, in the ordinary course of events, to revive and to support nature, the great Author of it would have blessed the land, desert as it was, with moisture at last, but I listened in vain for the pattering of rain, no drops, whether heavy or light, fell on my tent.  The morning of the 7th dawned fair and clear; the sun rose in unshrouded splendour; and crossed the heavens on that day without the intervention of a cloud to obscure his disc for a moment.  If then I except the rain of July, which lasted, at intervals, for three days, we had not had any for eleven months.  Under the withering effects of this long continued drought, the vegetable kingdom was again at a stand; and we ourselves might be said to have been contending so long against the elements.  No European in that respect had ever been more severely tried.