26th May.
Being Sunday, the camp was only moved a mile further to a fine pool of water in a river eighty yards wide, with beautiful grassy banks, which I named the Maitland; it comes from the south-east, and may probably have a course of sixty miles, coming through a plain five or six miles wide, the greater part of which is occasionally inundated by floods from the interior. Cockatoos and other game were plentiful, sixteen of the former being killed by Mr. Brockman at one shot; they were white, with orange-tinted feathers in the crest, similar to those on the Murchison and Gascoyne Rivers. It may be as well here to observe that upon first starting a regular routine of duty had been established in the party, the care and loading of five horses being told off to each two of the party, as they could lift on opposite packs simultaneously, and their being all numbered, everyone could at once know the loads under his charge. The night was also divided into eight watches, commencing at 8 p.m. and ending at 6 a.m.; the duty of the first watch being to cook the bread for the following day, and the last to have breakfast ready in the morning by the time it was light enough to see. By this arrangement no time was lost, and everyone knew what was under his particular charge. Camp 3.
SUDDEN FLOOD.
27th May.
Having determined in the first instance to strike to the westward, with a view to cutting any large rivers coming from the interior that might serve to lead us through the rocky hills that hemmed us in in that quarter, we this morning took a south-south-west by south course to 11.40 a.m. when we crossed a dry stream-bed sixty yards wide, coming out of the granite ranges to the southward, the country becoming more barren as we edged upon the spurs of the rocky hills. At 2.0 p.m. we halted on the banks of another stream-bed of the same size as the last, when it came on to rain; resuming our march at 4.10, steering west to 6.0, when we encamped on a dry gully, with a little feed near it. Having pitched the tents, it continued to rain until 11.0 p.m., when a sudden rush of water swept down the valley, filling the watercourse and carrying away our fire, and before we had time to remove the baggage to higher ground, we had a foot of water in the camp. Fortunately nothing was lost or injured, and it only served as a useful lesson for the future. Camp 4.
28th May.
The early part of the day was employed drying the stores, so that we did not make a start until late. Four and a half hours' travelling over stony country, principally covered with triodia, but containing several patches of good grass, brought us to another river fifty yards wide, in which were a few pools. This stream was followed up to 5 p.m., when we left it, and halted on an open plain close to some shallow clay-pans containing rainwater; our course for the day having been about south-west eleven miles. Camp 5.
Latitude 21 degrees 7 minutes.
29th May.
By an azimuth of the sun's centre taken this morning, the magnetic variation was observed to be about 20 minutes west. Steering north 230 degrees east magnetic, soon brought us out of the hills into a plain extending as far as the eye could reach to the north-west, with a few patches of good grass upon it, but mostly covered with triodia, which was now just ripe, yielding fine heads of seed, which the horses are very fond of. At thirteen miles struck the channel of a considerable river coming from the south. As this offered us a fair prospect of working inland, and we had already attained nearly to longitude 116 degrees, or about the meridian of the mouth of the Alma, the stream was followed up for an hour, its average breadth being over 200 yards. At 4.40 encamped at a fine spring on the bank of a deep pool, under a cliff of metamorphic sandstone nearly 300 feet high; a cane, much resembling a Spanish red, growing in considerable quantities near the water. Camp 6.