may be snapped in a moment, in the height of an Australian summer, in such a region as this, where that detestable vegetation, the triodia, and high and rolling sandhills exist for such enormous distances. The very sight of the country, in all its hideous terrors clad, is sufficient to daunt a man and kill a horse. I called the vile mountain which had caused me this disaster, Mount Destruction, for a visit to it had destroyed alike my horses and my hopes. I named the range of which it is the highest point, Carnarvon Range. We returned again to the Gorge of Tarns, as Mr. Tietkens very tritely remarked, sadder but wiser men. Our position here is by no means enviable, for although there is plenty of permanent water in this range, it appears to be surrounded by such extensive deserts that advance or retreat is equally difficult, as now I had no water in tanks or otherwise between this and Fort Mueller, and not a horse might ever reach that goal. I am again seated under the splashing fountain that falls from the rocks above, sheltered by the sunless caverns of this Gorge of Tarns, with a limpid liquid basin of the purest water at my feet, sheltered from the heated atmosphere which almost melts the rocks and sand of the country surrounding us--sitting as I may well declare in the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, but we cannot shut out from the mind the perils we have endured, the perils we may yet have to endure. For the present our wants and those of our gallant horses are supplied, but to the traveller in such a wilderness, when he once turns his back upon a water, the ever-recurring question presents itself, of when and where shall I obtain more? The explorer is necessarily insatiable for water; no quantity can satisfy him, for he requires it always and in every place. Life for water he will at any moment give, for water cannot be done without. Thermometer in outer shade 106 degrees; in the caverns 98 degrees.