Notwithstanding that the water was so bad, I tried several places by digging, but invariably came to salt water, oozing through black mud, and I there fore presumed that a good deal of rain must have fallen hereabouts, to have tempered the water of the lake so much; which it struck me would otherwise have been quite saline.  From the point where we first came down upon it, we traversed a flat beach covered with a short coarse rush, having the high red sand hill, of which I have spoken, to our left; before us a vast extent of low white sand, and to the eastward an extremely dark and depressed country.  I was really afraid of entering on the scorching sands in our front, for we were now full 90 miles from the creek, and it was absolutely necessary, before I should exceed that distance, to find a more permanent supply of water than the wells we had dug on our way out.  In order to ascertain the nature of the country more satisfactorily, however, I ascended the rugged termination of the sandy ridge, close to which we had been riding, and was induced, from what I then saw, to determine on a course somewhat to the west of north, since a due north course was evidently closed upon me; for I now saw that the country in that direction was hopeless, as well as in an easterly direction; but although I stood full 80 feet above the lake, I could not distinguish any thing like a hill on the distant horizon.  To the westward, as a medium point, there were a succession of sandy ridges, similar to that on which I stood; but to the S.W. there seemed to be an interval of plain.  As the thunder storm had reached as far as the place where we last slept, I did not doubt but that it had also reached the lake, and on consideration determined to keep as northerly a course as circumstances would permit, in pushing into a country in which I was meeting new difficulties every hour.  Descending, therefore, on a bearing of 340 degrees, I went to a distance of six miles before coming to a small puddle at which I was glad to halt, it being the only drinkable water we had seen.  Here we dug a third well, although, like the first, there was but little chance of benefiting by it.  It behoved me therefore to be still more careful in increasing my distance from the creek, so that on the morning of the 17th I thought it prudent to search for some, and as the country appeared open to the south, I turned to that point in the hope of success.

We crossed some low sand hills to a swamp in which there was a good deal of surface water, but none of a permanent kind.  We then crossed the N.W. extremity of an extensive grassy plain, similar to those I have already described, but infinitely larger.  It continued, indeed, for many miles to the south, passing between all the sandy points jutting into it; and so closely was the Desert allied to fertility at this point, and I may say in these regions, that I stood more than once with one foot on salsolaceous plants growing in pure sand, with the other on luxuriant