Stuart was left in charge of the depôt, Browne accompanying Sturt; and on the 14th a start was made. For some days, owing to the pools of surface water left by the recent rain, they had no difficulty in keeping a straightforward course. The country passed over consisted of large level plains and long sand ridges, but they crossed numerous creeks and found more or less water in all of them, and finally got into a well-grassed, pleasing looking country, which greatly cheered them with a prospect of success, when, suddenly, they were confronted by a wall of sand, and for nearly twenty miles toiled over succeeding ridges. Fortunately, they found both water and feed, but their hopes received a sudden and complete downfall. Nor did a walk to the extremity of one of the sand ridges serve to raise their spirits. Sturt saw before him an immense plain, of a dark purple hue, with its horizon like that of the sea, boundless in the direction in which he wished to proceed. This was the Stony Desert. That night they camped in it, and the next morning came to an earthy plain, with here and there a few bushes of polygonum growing beside some stray channel, in some of which they, luckily, found a little muddy rain water still left. When they camped at night they sighted, for a short time, some hills to the north, and, on examining them through the telescope, saw dark shadows on their faces as if produced by cliffs. Next day they made for these hills, in the hope of finding a change of country and feed for their horses; but they were disappointed. Sand ridges in terrible array once more rose up before them. "Even the animals," says Sturt, "appeared to regard them with dismay."
Over plains and sand dunes, the former full of yawning cracks and holes, the party pushed on, subsisting on precarious pools of muddy water and fast-sinking native wells; until, on the 3rd of September, Flood, the stockman, who was riding ahead, held up his hat and called aloud to them that a large creek was in sight.
On coming up the others saw a beautiful watercourse, the bed of which was full of grass and water. This creek Sturt called Eyre's Creek, and it was one of the most important discoveries he made in this region. Along this watercourse they made easy stages until the 7th, when the creek was lost, and the water in the lagoons near the bank was found to be intensely salt. After repeated efforts to continue his journey, which only led him amongst the everlasting sand hills, separated by plains encrusted with salt, Sturt came to the erroneous conclusion that he was at the head of the creek, and further progress impossible. Had he but known it, he was within reach of permanently watered rivers, along which he could have travelled as far north as he wished. But there was neither sign nor clue afforded him; his men were sick, and his retreat to the depôt most precarious; there was nothing for it but to fall back again, and after a toilsome journey they reached the depôt, or Fort Grey as they had christened it, on the 2nd October.
Sturt now made up his mind for a final effort due north, and in company with Stuart and two fresh men, he started on the 9th of October; and on the second day reached Strzelecki Creek, which was the name they had given to the first creek crossed on their late expedition. On the 13th, they arrived at the banks of a magnificent channel with grassy banks, fine trees and abundant water; this was the now well-known Cooper's Creek, one of the most important rivers of the interior, its tributaries draining the southern slopes of the dividing watershed in the north.
Sturt on reaching this unexpected discovery was uncertain whether to follow its course to the eastward, or persevere in his original intention of pushing to the north. A thunder storm falling at the time made him adhere to his original course, and defer the examination of the new river until his return. In seven days after leaving Cooper's Creek, he had the negative satisfaction, as he expected, of gazing over the dreary waste of the stony desert, unchanged and forbidding as ever. They crossed it, and were again turned back by sand hill and salt plain, and forced to retrace their steps to Cooper's Creek. This creek Sturt followed upward for many days, but finding it did not take him in the direction he desired to go, and moreover, the large broad channel that they first came to, became divided into many small ones, which ran through flooded plains, making the travelling most tiring on their exhausted horses; he reluctantly turned back. They had found the creek well populated with natives, and the prospects of getting on were apparently better than they had ever met with before, but both Sturt and his men were weak and ill, and his horses thoroughly tired out, and also he was not sure of his retreat.
Following Cooper's Creek back, they found that the water had dried up so rapidly that grave fears were entertained that Strzelecki's Creek, their main reliance in going back to the depôt, would be dry. Fortunately, they were in time to find a little muddy fluid left, just enough to serve them. Here they experienced a hot wind that forced them to camp the whole day, although most anxious to get on.
"We had scarcely got there," writes Sturt, "when the wind, which had been blowing all the morning hot from the north-east, increased to a gale, and I shall never forget its withering effects. I sought shelter behind a large gum tree, but the blasts of heat were so terrific, that I wondered the very grass did not take fire. This really was nothing ideal; everything, both animate and inanimate, gave way before it; the horses stood with their backs to the wind, and their noses to the ground, without the muscular strength to raise their heads; the birds were mute, and the leaves of the tree under which we were sitting, fell like a snow shower around us. At noon, I took a thermometer, graduated to 127 degrees, out of my box, and observed that the mercury was up to 125. Thinking that it had been unduly influenced, I put it in the fork of a tree close to me, sheltered alike from the wind and the sun. In this position I went to examine it about an hour afterwards, when I found that the mercury had risen to the top of the instrument, and that its further expansion had burst the bulb, a circumstance that, I believe, no traveller has had to recount before."
Let the reader remember when reading the above description, which has been so much quoted, that the man who wrote it was in such a weakened condition, that he had no energy left to withstand the hot wind, and that the shade they were cowering under was of the scantiest description.
They had still a journey of eighty-six miles, back to Fort Grey, with little prospect of any water being found on the way. After a long and weary ride they reached it only to find that, owing to the bad state of the water, Browne had been compelled to fall back on to their old camp at the Depôt Glen.
"We reached the plain just as the sun was descending, without having dismounted from our horses for fifteen hours, and as we rode down the embankment into it, looked around for the cattle, but none were to be seen. We looked towards the little sandy mound on which the tents had stood, but no white objects there met our eye; we rode slowly up to the stockade and found it silent and deserted. I was quite sure that Mr. Browne had had urgent reasons for retiring. I had, indeed, anticipated the measure. I hardly hoped to find him at the Fort, and had given him instructions on the subject of his removal; yet, a sickening feeling came over me when I saw that he was really gone; not on my own account, for, with the bitter feelings of disappointment with which I was returning home, I could calmly have laid my head on that desert, never to raise it again."