"My only hope of cutting Cooper's Creek is on the other side of the range. The plain we crossed to-day resembles those of the Cooper, also the grasses. If it is not there, it must run to the north-west, and form the Glenelg of Captain Grey."
Now, although we know that Grey held rather extravagant notions of the importance of the Glenelg, even he would not have thought it possible for the Glenelg to be the outlet of such a mighty river as Cooper's Creek would have become by the time it reached the north-west coast.
Stuart's horses were now too footsore to proceed over the stony country he found himself then in, and he had no spare shoes with him. Failing therefore to find the promised land of Wingillpin, although he had passed over much good and well-watered country, he turned to the south-west, and made some explorations in the neighbourhood of Lake Gairdner. Before this, however, he had found and named Chambers Creek. From Lake Gairdner, he steered for Fowler's Bay, and his description of some of the country he passed is anything but inviting. From a spur of the high peak that he named Mount Finke, he saw:--
"A prospect gloomy in the extreme: I could see a long distance, but nothing met the eye save a dense scrub, as black and dismal as night."
Routes of Stuart (1858 to 1862); and Burke and Wills (1860 and 1861).
From this point the party passed into a sandy spinifex desert, which Stuart says was worse than Sturt's; there had been a little salt-bush there, but here there was nothing but spinifex to be found, and the barren ground provided no food of any kind for the horses.
The state of affairs was becoming desperate with the little band, as their provisions were nearly finished; and though the leader was tempted to persist in the search for good pastoral country, he was at last forced to abandon the search and beat a hasty retreat. Dense scrub and the same "dreary dismal desert," as he calls it in his Journal, surrounded them day after day. Tired out and half-starved they reached the coast, and had but two meals left to carry them to Streaky Bay, where they found relief at Gibson's station. Here the sudden change from starvation to a full diet invalided most of them, and Stuart himself was very ill for some days. Finally they reached Thompson's station at Mount Arden, and there Stuart's first expedition terminated.
But this severe test only whetted Stuart's appetite for further exploration, and in April, 1859, he made another start. After crossing over some of the already-traversed country, Hergott, one of his companions, found the now well-known springs that bear his name. Stuart crossed his former discovery of Chambers Creek, and made for the Davenport Range, discovered by Warburton, finding many of the mound springs that characterize some parts of the interior. On the 6th of June he discovered a large creek, which he called the Neale. It ran through very good country, and Stuart followed it down, hoping to find it increase in volume and value as he went. In this he was not disappointed, as large plains covered with salt-bush and grass were found, and the party encountered several more springs. After satisfying himself of the extent and economic value of the country he had found, Stuart was obliged to return; for his horses' shoes had again worn out, and he had a lively and painful remembrance of the misery which his horses had suffered before from the lack of them.