The morning of the 20th was exceedingly calm, with the wind from the west, but it had been previously from the opposite point. The channel of the creek was broad, and we traced it to some distance on either hand, but it contained no water, excepting that at which we stopped; but at about two miles before we halted, Mr. Browne found a supply under some gum-trees, a little to the right of our course, where we halted on our return.
The Bauhinia here grew to the height of 16 to 20 feet, and was a very pretty tree; the ends of its branches were covered with seed-pods, both of this and the year before: it was a flat vessel, containing four or six flat hard beans. I regretted, at this early stage of our journey, that the horses were not up to much work, although we were very considerate with them, but the truth is, that they had for about two or three months before leaving the Depot, been living on pulpy vegetables, in which there was no strength, they nevertheless looked in good condition. They had become exceedingly tractable, and never wandered far from our fires; Flood, however, watched them so narrowly that they could not have gone far. Since the three days' rain in July, the sky was but little clouded, but we now observed, that from whatever quarter the wind blew, a bank of clouds would rise in the opposite direction--if from the east, in the west, and vice versa--but these clouds invariably came against the wind, and must consequently have been moving in an upper current.
On the 20th we commenced our journey early, that is to say, at 6 a.m.; the sky was clear, the temperature mild, and the wind in the S.E. quarter. We crossed plains of still greater extent than any we had hitherto seen; their soil was similar to that on the flats of the Darling, and vegetation seemed to suffer from their liability to inundation. The only trees now to be seen were a few box-trees along their skirts, and on the line of the creeks, which last were a perfectly new feature in the country, and surprised me greatly. The tract we passed over on this day was certainly more subject to overflow than usual. Large flats of polygonum, and plains having rents and fissures in them, succeeded those I have already described. At ten miles we intersected a creek of considerable size, but without any water; just below where we crossed its channel it spreads over a large flat and is lost. Proceeding onwards, at a mile and a half, we ascended a line of sand hills, and from them descended to firmer ground than that on which we had previously travelled. At six miles we struck another creek with a broad and grassy bed, on the banks of which we halted, at a small and muddy pool of water. The trees on this creek were larger than usual and beautifully umbrageous. It appeared as if coming from the N.E., and falling to the N.W. There were many huts both above and below our bivouac, and well-trodden paths from one angle of the creek to the other. All around us, indeed, there were traces of natives, nor can there be any doubt, but that at one season of the year or other, it is frequented by them in great numbers. From a small contiguous elevation our view extended over an apparently interminable plain in the line of our course. That of the creek was marked by gum-trees, and I was not without hopes that we should again have halted on it on the 21st, but we did not, for shortly after we started it turned suddenly to the west, and we were obliged to leave it, and crossed successive plains of a description similar to those we had left behind, but with little or no vegetation upon them. At about five miles we intersected a branch creek coming from the E.N.E., in which there was a large but shallow pool of water. About a mile to the westward of this channel we ascended some hills, in the composition of which there was more clay than sand, and descended from them to a firm and grassy plain of about three and a half miles in breadth. At the farther extremity we crossed a line of sand hills, and at a mile and a half again descended to lower ground, and made for some gum-trees at the western extremity of the succeeding plain, on our old bearing of 55 degrees to the west of north. There we intersected another creek with two pools of water in it, and as there was also a sufficiency of grass we halted on its banks.
The singular and rapid succession of these watercourses exceedingly perplexed me, for we were in a country remote from any high lands, and consequently in one not likely to give birth to such features, yet their existence was a most fortunate circumstance for us. There can be no doubt but that the rain, which enabled us to break up the old Depot and resume our operations, had extended thus far, but all the surface water had dried up, and if we had not found these creeks our progress into the interior would have been checked. In considering their probable origin, it struck me that they might have been formed by the rush of floods from the extensive plains we had lately crossed. The whole country indeed over which we had passed from the first creek, was without doubt very low, and must sometimes be almost entirely under water, but what, it may be asked, causes such inundation? Such indeed was the question I asked myself, but I must say I could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion.
That these regions are subject to heavy rains I had not the slightest doubt, but could the effect of heavy rains have produced these creeks, short and uncertain in their course, rising apparently in one plain, to spread over and terminate in another, for had we gone more to the westward in our course than we did, it is probable we should never have known of the existence of any of them. I was truly thankful that we had thus fallen upon them, and considering how much our further success depended on their continuance, I began to hope that we should find them a permanent feature in the country.
About this period and two or three days previously, we observed a white bank of clouds hanging upon the northern horizon, and extending from N.E. to N.W. No wind affected it, but without in the least altering its shape, which was arched like a bow, it gradually faded away about 3 p.m. Could this bank have been over any inland waters?
At the point to which I have now brought the reader, we were in lat. 27 degrees 38 minutes S., and in long. 140 degrees 10 minutes by account, and here, as I have observed, as in our journey to Lake Torrens, the N.E. winds were invariably cold. On the 22nd we crossed the creek, and traversed a large plain on the opposite side that was bounded in the distance by a line of sand hills. On this plain were portions of ground perfectly flat, raised some 12 or 18 inches above its general level; on these, rhagodia bushes were growing, which in the distance looked like large trees, in consequence of the strong refraction. The lower ground of these plains had little or no vegetation upon it, but bore the appearance of land on which water has lodged and subsided; being hard and baked in some places, but cracked and blistered in others, and against the sides of the higher portions of the plain, a line of sticks and rubbish had been lodged, such as is left by a retiring tide, and from this it seemed that the floods must have been about a foot deep on the plain when it was last inundated. At 4 1/2 miles we reached its western extremity, and ascending the line of sand hills by which it is bounded on that side, dropped down to another plain, and at six miles intersected a creek with a deep broad and grassy bed, but no water. A high row of gum trees marked its course from a point rather from the southward of east to the north-north-west. Crossing to the opposite side we ascended another sand hill by a gradual rise, and again descended to another plain, at the farther extremity of which we could indistinctly see a dark line of trees. Arriving at these after a ride of six miles, we were stopped by another creek. Its banks were too steep for the cart, and we consequently turned northward and traced it downwards for four miles before we found a convenient spot at which to halt. The ground along the creek side was of the most distressing nature; rent to pieces by solar heat, and entangled with polygonum twisted together. We passed several muddy water-holes, and at length stopped at a small clear deep pond. The colour of the water, a light green, at once betrayed its quality; but fortunately for us, though brackish it was still tolerable, much better than the gritty water we had passed. There was however but little vegetation in its neighbourhood, the grass being coarse and wiry. Both on this creek and some others we had passed, we observed that the graves of the natives were made longitudinally from north to south, and not as they usually are from east to west.
The evening we stopped at this place was very fine. We had descended into the bed of the creek, and Mr. Browne and I were reclining on the ground, looking at the little pond, in which the bank above was clearly reflected. On a sudden my companion asked me if I had brought a small hook with me, as he had taken it into his head that there were fish in the pond. Being unable to supply his wants, he got a pin, and soon had a rough kind of apparatus prepared, with which he went to the water; and, having cast in his bait, almost immediately pulled out a white and glittering fish, and held it up to me in triumph. I must confess that I was exceedingly astonished, for the first idea that occurred to my mind was--How could fish get into so isolated a spot? In the water-holes above us no animals of the kind could have lived. How then were we to account for their being where we found them, and for the no less singular phenomenon of brackish waters in the bed of a fresh water creek? These were exceedingly puzzling questions to me at the time, but, as the reader will find, were afterwards explained. Mr. Browne succeeded in taking no less than thirteen fish, and seemed to think that they were identical with the silver perch of the Murray, but they appeared to me to be a deeper and a thinner fish. Although none of them exceeded six inches in length, they were very acceptable to men who were living on five pounds of flour only a-week.
