I then sent for Mr. Browne, and told him that I proposed leaving the stockade in two days, by which time I hoped the horses would in some measure have recovered from their fatigues,--that as he could not attend me, I should take Mr. Stuart with two fresh men,--that in making my arrangements I found that I should be obliged to take all the horses but two, the one he rode and a weaker animal; to this, however, he would by no means consent--entreating me to take his horse also, as he felt assured I should want all the strength I could get.
No rain had as yet fallen, but every day the heat was increasing: the thermometer rising, even thus early in the season, to 98 degrees and 100 degrees in the shade, and the wind keeping steadily to the E.S.E. The country was so dry, and the largest pools of water had so diminished in quantity, that I doubted whether or not I should be able to get on, since as it was I should have to travel the first 86 miles without water, there being none in any other direction to the north of us. Even the large sheet in the first creek, to which I proposed going, had fearfully shrunk. But what gave me most uneasiness, was the reduced state of water on which the men and animals depended. From a fine broad sheet it was now confined within the limits of its own narrow channel, and I felt satisfied that if I should be absent many weeks, Mr. Browne would be obliged to abandon his position. Foreseeing this contingency, I arranged with him that in the event of his finding it necessary to retire, he should fall back on the little creek, near the old Depot. That before he finally broke up the camp, he should dig a hole in some favourable part of the creek into which the water he might leave would drain, so as to insure on my return as much as possible, and we marked a tree under which he was to bury a bottle, with a letter in it to inform me of his intended movements. Nothing could have been more marked or more attentive than Mr. Browne's manner to me, and I am sure he saw me mount my horse to depart with sincere regret; but the interval between the conclusion of these arrangements and the day fixed on to resume my labours soon passed over, although I deferred it to the 9th, in consequence of Flood's assuring me that the horses required the additional rest.
I had, indeed, been the more disposed to postpone the day of my departure, because I hoped, from appearances, that rain would fall, but I was disappointed. On the 6th it was very close, and heavy clouds passed over us from the N.E., our rainy quarter, towards the Mount Serle ranges, but still no rain fell on the depressed and devoted region in which we were. At eight, however, it rained slightly for about a quarter of an hour, and the horizon was black with storm clouds; all night heavy thunder rolled in the distance, both to the west and east of us; my ear caught that joyful sound as I laid on my mattress, and I fervently prayed that it might be the precursor of a fall.
I could not but hope, that, in the ordinary course of events, to revive and to support nature, the great Author of it would have blessed the land, desert as it was, with moisture at last, but I listened in vain for the pattering of rain, no drops, whether heavy or light, fell on my tent. The morning of the 7th dawned fair and clear; the sun rose in unshrouded splendour; and crossed the heavens on that day without the intervention of a cloud to obscure his disc for a moment. If then I except the rain of July, which lasted, at intervals, for three days, we had not had any for eleven months. Under the withering effects of this long continued drought, the vegetable kingdom was again at a stand; and we ourselves might be said to have been contending so long against the elements. No European in that respect had ever been more severely tried.
The day before we commenced our journey to the north it was exceedingly hot, the thermometer rose to 106 degrees in the shade, and thus early in the season were we forewarned of what we might expect when the sun should become more vertical. In the afternoon the old man who had visited us just before we commenced our late journey, arrived in the camp with his two wives, and a nice little girl about eleven, with flowing curly hair, the cleanliness and polish of which would have done credit to the prettiest head that ever was adorned with such. They came in from the S.W., and were eagerly passing our tents, without saying a word, and making for the water, when we called to them and supplied all their wants. The poor things were almost perishing from thirst, and seized the pannikins with astonishing avidity, when they saw that they contained water, and had them replenished several times. It happened also fortunately for them, that the lamb of the only ewe we had with us, and which had been dropped a few weeks before, got a coup de soleil, in consequence of which I ordered it to be killed, and given to the old man and his family for supper. This they all of them appeared to enjoy uncommonly, and very little of it was left after their first meal. The old man seemed to be perfectly aware that we had been out, but shook his head when I made him understand that I was going out again in the morning.
I determined, on the journey I was about to commence, to run on a due north course from the first "Strzelecki's Creek," as soon as I should reach it, and to penetrate the interior in that direction as far as circumstances might justify. As the reader will have concluded from the observations I have made, it had occurred to me that the Stony Desert had been the bed of a former stream, and I felt satisfied that if I was right in that conclusion, I should certainly strike it again. My object, therefore, was to keep at such a distance from my last course, as should leave no doubt of that fact upon my mind; it appeared to me that a due northerly course would about meet my views, and that if the Stony Desert was what I supposed it to have been, I should come upon it about two degrees to the eastward of where I had already crossed it. In pushing up to the north I also hoped that I might find a termination to the sandy ridges, although I could not expect to get into any very good country, for from what we saw to the north it was evidently much lower than that over which we had passed, and I therefore looked for a cessation of the sandy ridges we had before been so severely distressed on passing.
I shook hands with Mr. Browne about half-past eight on the morning of the 9th of October, and left the depot camp at Fort Grey, with Mr. Stuart, Morgan and Mack, taking with me a ten-weeks' supply of flour and tea. I once more struck into the track I had already twice traversed, with the intention of turning to the north as soon as I should gain Strzelecki's Creek. As we rode over the sand-hills, they appeared as nothing to me, after the immense accumulations of sand we had crossed when Mr. Browne and I were out together. We stopped short of the flat in which we had sunk the largest well on that occasion, to give the horses time to feed a little before sunset, and not to hurry them too much at starting. The day was exceedingly warm, and the wind from the N.E. A few heat-drops fell during the night, but the short thunder shower at the Depot on the Sunday did not appear to have extended so far as where we then were. Nevertheless it would appear, that these low regions are simultaneously affected by any fall of rain; for there can be no doubt as to that of July having extended all over the desert interior, and the drizzling shower we had at the head of the northern Eyre's Creek, just as we were about to retrace our steps, having been felt the same day at the camp. I have just said that the day had been exceedingly hot, with the wind from the N.E., a quarter from whence we might naturally have expected that it would have blown warm; but I would observe, that before Mr. Browne and I passed the Stony Desert on our recent excursion, the winds from that point were unusually cold, and continued so until after we had crossed the Desert, and pushed farther up to the north, when they changed from cold to heat. I will not venture any conjecture as to the cause of this, because I can give no solution to the question, but leave it to the ingenuity of my readers, who are as well able to judge of such a fact as myself.
I would also advert to a circumstance I neglected to mention in its proper place, but which may be as forcibly done now as at the time it occurred. When Mr. Browne and I were on our recent journey to the north, after having crossed the Stony Desert, being then between it and Eyre's Creek, about nine o'clock in the morning, we distinctly heard a report as of a great gun discharged, to the westward, at the distance of half a mile. On the following morning, nearly at the same hour, we again heard the sound; but it now came from a greater distance, and consequently was not so clear. When I was on the Darling, in lat. 30 degrees, in 1828, I was roused from my work by a similar report; but neither on that occasion, or on this, could I solve the mystery in which it was involved. It might, indeed, have been some gaseous explosion, but I never, in the interior, saw any indication of such phenomena.
We were obliged to fasten up our horses to prevent them from straying for water, and had, therefore, nothing to do but to saddle them on the morning of the 10th, and started at six. Our journey the day before had been 33 miles: this day we rode about 36, to the little muddy creek the the reader will, I have no doubt, call to mind. In it, contrary to my expectation, we found a small supply of water, though difficult to get; and I halted at it, therefore, for the night, and reached the Strzelecki Creek about half-past ten on the morning of the 11th, in which I was rejoiced to find that the water was far from being exhausted. Turning northwards up the creek, I halted about half-past one at the upper pool, about seven miles from the first. As far as this point the lay of the sand ridges was N.N.E. and S.S.W.
As Mr. Browne had stated to me, the country to the north was much more open from the point at which we now were than to the west. A vast plain, indeed, met the horizon in the first direction, and as we rode up it on the 12th, we observed that it was bounded at irregular distances, varying from three to six miles, on either side of us, by low sand hills. The whole plain was evidently subject to flood, and the travelling in some places was exceedingly heavy. We had ridden from early dawn until the sun had sunk below the horizon, without seeing any apparent termination to this plain, or the slightest indication of water. Just as it was twilight we got on a polygonum flat; there being a little sand hill on one side of it, under which I determined to stop for the night.