Returning to the horses, we turned southerly to the most westerly creek that issues from the range. I found some water up at the head of it in rock-holes; but it was so far up easterly, that we could not have been more than five or six miles across the hills from our last night's encampment at the Circus. There was only a poor supply of water in two small holes, which could not last longer than three days at the most. The thermometer ranged up to 104 degrees to-day. Some of the horses are now terribly footsore. I would shoe them, only that we are likely to be in the sandhills again immediately. I did not exactly know which way to go. Mr. Tietkens and I ascended the highest hill in this part of the range. I had yesterday seen something like the top of a ridge south-westerly; I now found it was part of a low distant range, and not of a very promising nature. There was a conspicuous mountain, which now bore north-east about fifty miles away, and I fancied I saw the refracted tops of other ranges floating in the mirage. I thought, from the mountain just mentioned, I might discover others, which might lead me away to the west. Up to the present time we had always called this, in consequence of its bearing when first seen, the North-west Mountain. I thought a change of country might be met with sooner in a north or north-westerly direction than in a west or south-westerly one, as the sources of the Murchison River must be met somewhere in the former direction. I tried the boiling-point of water here, and found that the ebullition occurred at two degrees higher than at the Alice Falls, which indicated a fall of nearly 1000 feet, the western end of the range being much lower than the middle or eastern. We had still a couple of bottles of spirit left in the medical department, and as nobody seemed inclined to get ill, we opened one here. Jimmy Andrews having been a sailor boy, I am afraid had learnt bad habits, as he was very fond of grog. When we opened the last bottle at Christmas, and Jimmy had had a taste, he said, "What's the use of only a nobbler or two? I wouldn't give a d--," dump, I suppose he meant, "for grog unless I could get drunk." I said, "Well, now, my impression is that it would require very little grog to do that." He said, "Why, I'd drink six bottles off and never know it." I said, "Well, the next bottle we open you shall have as much out of it as you can take in one drink, even if you drink the whole bottle." He replied, "Oh, all right, I'll leave a nobbler for you, you know, Mr. Giles; and I'd like to give Tietkens a taste; but that [adjective] Gibson, I'll swear he won't git none." So we opened the bottle, and I said, "Now then, Jimmy, here's your grog, let's see how much you can drink." "Oh!" said he," I ain't going to drink it all at once." "All right," I said, "if you don't, we shall--so now is your chance." Jimmy poured out a good stiff glass and persisted in swallowing it raw. In