were growing on it, and one would have supposed from its appearance that it was a sea marsh.  Mr. Stuart shot a beautiful ground parrot as we were crossing it, on a bearing of 345 degrees, or little more than a N. and by W. course.  At 6 1/2 miles we ascended some heavy sandy ridges, without any regularity in their disposition, but lying in great confusion.  Toiling over these, at seven or eight miles farther we sighted a fine sheet of water, bearing N. and distant about two miles.  At another mile I altered my course to 325 degrees, to pass to the westward of this new feature, which then proved to be a lake about the size of Lake Bonney, that is to say from 10 to 12 miles in circumference.  The ridge by which we had approached it terminated suddenly and directly over it; to our right there were other ridges terminating in a similar manner, with rushy flats between them; eastward the country was dark and very low; to the north there was a desert of glittering white sand in low hillocks, scattered over with dwarf brush, and on it the heat was playing as over a furnace.  Immediately beneath me to the west there was a flat leading to the shore of the lake, and on the western side a bright red sand hill, full eighty feet high, shut out the view in that quarter.  This ridge was not altogether a mile and a half in length, and behind it there were other ridges of the same colour bounding the horizon with edges as sharp as icebergs.

I did not yet know whether the waters of the lake were salt or fresh, although I feared they were salt.  Looking on it, however, I saw clearly that it was very shallow; a line of poles ran across it, such as are used by the natives for catching wild fowl, of which there were an abundance, as well as of hematops on the water.  As soon as we descended from the sand ridge we got on a narrow native path, that led us down to a hut, about 100 yards from the shore of the lake.

As we approached the water, the effluvia from it was exceedingly offensive, and the ground became a soft, black muddy sand.  On tasting it we found that the water was neither one thing or the other, neither salt or fresh, but wholly unfit for use.  Close to its margin there was a broad path leading to the eastward, or rather round the lake; and under the sand ridge to the west, were twenty-seven huts, but they had long been deserted, and were falling to decay.  Nevertheless they proved that the waters of the lake were sometimes drinkable, or that the natives had some other supply of fresh water at no great distance, from whence they could easily come to take wild fowl, nor could I doubt such place would be the creek.