As our recent journey proved that in going to the westward on the 5th inst., we had wandered from the creek, and that instead of holding on in that direction, it had changed its course considerably to the eastward of north, I determined, after we should all have had a day of rest, to trace the channel upwards, in order to satisfy myself as to what became of it. On the 10th, therefore, Mr. Browne and myself with Flood, mounted our horses, with the intention of tracing it up until we should have ascertained to what point it led. We passed through some very pretty scenery in the proximity of the lagoon where it was lightly wooded, with an abundance of grass; and I could not help reflecting with how much more buoyant and pleasurable feelings we should have explored such a country, when compared with the monotonous and sterile region we had wandered over. The transition however from the rich to the barren, from the picturesque to the contrary, was instantaneous. From the grassy woodland we had been riding through, we debouched upon a barren plain without any vegetation, and after crossing a small channel, intersected a second much larger, a little beyond it. Both creeks evidently traversed different parts of a large plain to the north, to which they had no apparent inlet. There was a long tongue of sand, rather elevated, and running up into the plain, to the termination of which we rode, and then found ourselves, as it were, in the centre of an area, that was of great extent, and appeared to be bounded on all sides, excepting that by which we had entered, by sand hills. Unconnected lines of trees marked the courses of the channels traversing it in different directions, but as the evening had far advanced, and my object had been rather to look round about me than to make any lengthened excursion, we returned to our little bivouac, with the intention of devoting another day to the fuller examination of the neighbourhood.
On the following day I proceeded with the whole party to the westward, anticipating that the salt formation existing to the north-west was merely local, and that by thus turning a few degrees from the course on which we had before gone, we should altogether avoid it. I should not, however, have taken Joseph and Lewis with the cart, if I had not been somewhat apprehensive that the natives might visit the camp during my absence, and some misunderstanding be the consequence; for as we had hitherto found the country to the westward worse than at any other point, I was after all doubtful how far I should be able to push on.
We left the creek on a W. by N. course, the direction of the sandy ridges being to the N.N.W., so that we were obliged to cross them successively. I soon found that the country was infinitely worse than I expected. We had scarcely passed a kind of marsh at some little distance from the creek, when we once more crossed salty valleys, between high sandy ridges. The wind blowing fresh from the south, peppered us with showers of sand as we ascended the last, and carried the salt in the valleys like drifting snow from one end of them to the other, filling our eyes and entering the pores of the skin, so as to cause us much annoyance. Before noon we had crossed eighteen of these sandy undulations, and were on the top of another, having fairly tired the horses in the ascent, and I consequently pulled up, to wait for the cart, but the heavy nature of the country had so shaken it, that the men were obliged to stop; and on examining the spokes of the wheels, I really wondered how they could have got on so far, and expected that in another half mile every one of them would be shaken out, and the cart itself fall to the ground. The spokes had shrunk to such a degree that they did not hold in the felloes and axles by more than two or three 10ths of an inch. I felt it necessary therefore to turn back to the creek, to get new spokes of such wood as we could procure, there not being a tree of any kind visible near us; but it was late ere we got back to water, and once more took up our position on the same ground we had quitted in the morning. The country we had passed was certainly such as to deter me from making a second attempt in the same quarter, and to confirm my impression that from some cause or other the interior to the westward was worse than anywhere else. Lewis, the moment we got back to the creek, set to work in good earnest, with Joseph's assistance, to repair the cart, but it necessarily delayed us longer than prudence would have allowed; in the meantime, however, we were at least deriving benefit from rest.
On mature consideration, I thought the quarter in which we should have most chance of success would be a course a little to the east of north, for the day Mr. Browne and I rode up the creek it appeared to me that the country was more open in that direction. I thought it better, however, to make for the sandy tongue of land in the centre of the plain, in which the creek appeared to take its rise, and to be guided by circumstances both in the examination of that plain, and the course I should ultimately pursue. The cart being fit for use on the morning of the 12th we again left the creek, and at four miles on an east by north course arrived at the sand hill to which I desired to go; from that point I proceeded to the N.N.W., that appearing to be the general direction of the creek upwards; but as there were lines of box-trees on both sides of us, those to our left being denser than the right, I moved for them over a plain of about five miles in breadth, but so full of cracks and fissures that we had great difficulty in crossing it. Not-withstanding, however, that the cart fell constantly into them, we got it safely over. Not finding any water under or near the trees I turned a little to the north, keeping wide of the creek; but, coming on its channel again at five miles, I halted, because there happened to be a little grass there, and we were fortunate enough, after some perseverance, to find a muddy puddle that served the horses, however unfit for our use. From the appearance of the plain before us, I hardly anticipated success in our undertaking. We had evidently arrived near the head of the creek, and I felt assured that if the features of the country here, were similar to those of other parts of the interior, we should, between where we then were, and some distant sand hills, again find ourselves travelling over a salt formation. The evening had closed in with a cloudy sky, and the wind at W.N.W., and during the night we had two or three flying showers, but they were really in mockery of rain, nor was any vestige of it to be seen in the morning, which broke with a clear sky, and the wind from the S.E.
As soon as morning dawned we saddled our horses and made for the head of the plain, crossing bare and heavy ground until we neared the sand hills, when observing that I was leaving the creek, which I was anxious to trace up, we turned to the north-east for a line of gum-trees, but the channel was scarcely perceptible under them, and we had evidently run it out. There were only two or three solitary trees to be seen to the north, at which point the plain was bounded by sand hills. To the S.E. there was a short line of trees, from the midst of which the natives were throwing up a signal smoke, but as it would have taken me out of my way to have gone to them, I held on a N.N.W. course, and at the termination of the plain ascended a sand hill, though of no great height. From it we descended a small valley, the sides of which were covered with samphire bushes, and the bottom by the dry white and shallow bed of a salt lagoon. From this valley we passed into a plain, in which various kinds of salsolaceous productions were growing round shallow salty basins. At a little distance from these, however, we stumbled upon a channel with some tolerable water in it, hid amongst rhagodia bushes, but the horses refused to drink. This plain communicated with that we had just left, round the N.E. point of the sand hill we had crossed but there were no box-trees on it to mark the line of any creek or water; but the sand ridge forming its northern boundary was very high, and contrary to their usual lay, ran directly across our course, and as the ascent was long and gradual, so was it some time before we got to the top. The view which then presented itself was precisely similar to the one I have already described, and from which we had before been obliged to retreat. Long parallel lines of sandy ridges ran up northwards, further than we could see, and rose in the same manner on either side. Their sides were covered with spinifex, but there was a clear space at the bottom of the valleys, and as there was really no choice we proceeded down one of them, for 12 miles, and then halted.
At this point the open space at the bottom of the valleys had all closed in, and the cart, during the latter part of the journey, had gone jolting over the tufts and circles of spinifex to the great distress of the horse; grass and water had both failed, nor could I see the remotest chance of any change in the character of the country. It was clear, indeed, that until rain should fall it was perfectly impracticable; and with such a conviction on my mind, I felt that it would only be endangering the lives of those who were with me, if I persevered in advancing. I therefore once more determined to fall back upon the creek, there to hold my ground until such time as it should please God to send us rain. We re-entered the plain in which the creek rises at 3 p.m., and made for the trees, from whence the signal smoke was rising, and there came on a tolerable sized pond of water, at which we stopped for a short time, and while resting, ascertained that some natives were encamped at a little distance above us; but although we went to them, and endeavoured by signs and other means to obtain information, we could not succeed, they either did not or would not understand us; neither, although our manner must have allayed any fear of personal injury to themselves, did they evince the slightest curiosity, or move, or even look up when we left them. I cannot, however, think that such apparent indifference arises from a want of feeling, for that, on some points, they possess in a strong degree; but so it was, that the natives of the interior never approached our camps, however much we might encourage them. On leaving these people, of whom, if I recollect, there were seven, we tried to avoid the distressing plains we had crossed in the morning, and it was consequently late before we got to the creek and dismounted from our horses, after a journey of about 42 miles. The 13th thus found us beaten back by difficulties such as were not to be overcome by human perseverance. I had returned to the creek with the intention of abiding the fall of rain, and was not without hopes that it would have gladdened us, for the sky about this time was very cloudy, and anywhere else but in the low country in which we were, rain most assuredly would have fallen. As it was, the clouds passed over us without breaking.
A lunar we here obtained placed us in longitude 138 degrees 15 minutes 31 seconds E., our latitude being 25 degrees 4 minutes 0 seconds S. Computed from these data I deem I may fairly assume we were in 24 degrees 40 minutes 0 seconds S., and on the 138th meridian, when we stopped on the 8th; being then 470 geographical miles to the north of Mount Arden, about 350 from Mount Hopeless, and rather more than midway between the first of those hills and the Gulf of Carpentaria. My readers will perhaps bear in mind, that the object of this expedition was limited "to ascertaining the existence and the character of a supposed chain of hills, or a succession of separate hills, trending down from N.E. to S.W. and forming a great natural division of the continent." I hope I do not take too much credit to myself; if I say that I have set that question at rest; and that, considering the nature of the country into which I penetrated, no such chain can reasonably be supposed to exist. If, indeed, any mountains had really been in the direction specified, it appears to me that I must have discovered them, but, as far as my poor opinion goes, I think the sandy ridges, both I and my readers have so much reason to hold in dread, are as extensive on one side of the Stony Desert as the other. In truth, I believe, that not only is such the case, but that the same region extends with undiminished breadth even to the great Australian Bight, which occupies a space along the south coast of the continent, as nearly as may be of equal breadth with the sea-born Desert itself; and I cannot but conclude that that remarkable wall, shewing a perpendicular front to the ocean, but sloping inwards from the coast, was thrown up simultaneously with the fossil bed of the Murray, during the time those convulsions, by which the changes in the central parts of the continent, to which I have already called attention, were going on. But I venture to give these opinions with extreme diffidence; they may be contrary to general views on the subject. I merely record my own impressions from what I have observed, in the hope that I may assist the geologist in his inferences. The ideas I would desire to convey are clear enough in my own mind, but I must confess that I feel a great difficulty in placing them so forcibly and so clearly before my readers as I could desire.