This then was Sturt's prison, although at first he had not realised that in spite of every precaution, his retreat was cut off until the next rainfall.
Of Sturt's existence and occupation during this dreary period little can be said. He tried in every direction, until convinced of the uselessness of so doing, sometimes encouraged and led on by shallow pools in some fragmentary creek bed, at others, seeing nothing before him but hopeless aridity. Now, too, he found himself attacked with what he then thought was rheumatism, but proved to be scurvy, and Poole and Browne too were afflicted in the same way.
We now come to one of the picturesque incidents that Sturt has introduced in his narrative, and that help to fix on our memory the strangely weird picture of the lonely band of men confronted with the unaccustomed forces of nature in this wilderness.
"As we rode across the stony plain lying between us and the hills, the heated and parching blasts that came upon us, were more than we could bear. We were in the centre of the plain, when Mr. Browne drew my attention to a number of small black specks in the upper air. These spots increasing momentarily in size, were evidently approaching us rapidly. In an incredibly short space of time, we were surrounded by hundreds of the common kite, stooping down to within a few feet of us, and then turning away after having eyed us steadily. Several approached us so closely, that they threw themselves back to avoid contact, opening their beaks and spreading out their talons. The long flight of these birds, reaching from the ground into the heavens, put me strongly in mind of one of Martin's beautiful designs, in which he produces the effect of distance by a multitude of objects vanishing from the view."
Sturt, during his detention in the depôt, made one desperate attempt to the north, when he succeeded in getting a mile above the 28th parallel, but found nothing to repay him for his trouble.
And so week after week of this fearful monotony passed on without hardly a break or change.
Once, an old native wandered to their camp. He was starving and thirsty, looking a fit being to emerge from the gaunt waste around them. The dogs attacked him when he approached, but he stood his ground and fought them valiantly until they were called off; his whole demeanour was calm and courageous, and he showed neither surprise nor timidity. He drank greedily when water was given him, and ate voraciously, but whence he came the men could not divine nor could he explain to them. He accepted what was given to him, as a right expected by one fellow-being from another, cut off in the desert from their own kin. While he stopped at their camp he showed that he knew the use of the boat, explaining that it was upside down, as of course it was, and pointing to the N.W. as the place where they would want it, raising poor Sturt's hopes once more. After a fortnight he departed as he came, saying he would come back, but he never did.
"With him," says Sturt pathetically, "all our hopes vanished, for even the presence of this savage was soothing to us, and so long as he remained we indulged in anticipations as to the future. From the time of his departure a gloomy silence pervaded the camp; we were, indeed, placed under the most trying circumstances, everything combined to depress our spirits and exhaust our patience. We had witnessed migration after migration of the feathered tribes, to that point to which we were so anxious to push our way. Flights of cockatoos, of parrots, of pigeons, and of bitterns; birds, also, whose notes had cheered us in the wilderness, all had taken the same high road to a better and more hospitable region."
And now the water began to sink with frightful rapidity, and they all thought that the end was surely coming. Hoping against hope, Sturt laid his plans to start as soon as the drought broke up, himself to proceed north and west whilst poor Poole, reduced to a frightful condition by scurvy, was to be sent carefully back as the only means of saving his life.
On the 12th and 13th of July the rain commenced, and the siege was raised, but Poole never lived to profit by it. Every arrangement for his comfort was made that the circumstances permitted, but on the first day's journey he died, and they brought his body back to the depôt and made his lonely grave there. Sturt's way was now open. After burying his lamented friend, he again dispatched the party that was selected to return home, and, with renewed hope, made preparations for the northwest. He first, however, removed the depôt to a better grassed locality, water being now plentiful everywhere. During a short western trip, on the 4th August they found themselves on the edge of an immense shallow and sandy basin, in which were detached sheets of water, "as blue as indigo and as salt as brine." This they took to be Lake Torrens, and returned to the depôt to arrange matters for a final departure.