We travelled along the creek all day, cutting off the bends, but without seeing any signs of water: towards evening we set to work to try if we could get any by digging. In about four feet, water began to drain in, but, the sand being so loose, we had to remove an enormous quantity to enable a horse to drink. Some of the horses would not go into it, and had to be watered with a canvas bucket. The supply seemed good, but it only drained in from the sides. Every time a horse drank we had to clear out the sand for the next; it therefore took until late before all were satisfied. The country was still open, and timbered with fine black oak, or what is so called in Australia. It is a species of casuarina, of the same family but distinct from the beautiful desert oak. Triodia reigned supreme within half a mile. At this camp the old grass had been burnt, and fresh young green shoots appeared in its place; this was very good for the horses. A few drops of rain fell; distant rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning now cooled the air. While we were at breakfast the next morning, a thunderstorm came up to us from the west, then suddenly turned away, only just sprinkling us, though we could see the rain falling heavily a few yards to the south. We packed up and went off, hoping to find a better watered region at the hills westwards. There was an extraordinary mount a little to the west of north from us; it looked something like a church; it was over twenty miles away: I called it Mount Peculiar. Leaving the creek on our left, to run itself out into some lonely flat or dismal swamp, known only to the wretched inhabitants of this desolate region--over which there seems to brood an unutterable stillness and a dread repose--we struck into sandhill country, rather open, covered with the triodia or spinifex, and timbered with the casuarina or black oak trees. We had scarcely gone two miles when our old thunderstorm came upon us--it had evidently missed us at first, and had now come to look for us--and it rained heavily. The country was so sandy and porous that no water remained on the surface. We travelled on and the storm travelled with us--the ground sucking up every drop that fell. Continuing our course, which was north 67 degrees west, we travelled twenty-five miles. At this distance we came in sight of the mountains I was steering for, but they were too distant to reach before night, so, turning a little northward to the foot of a low, bare, white granite hill, I hoped to find a creek, or at least some ledges in the rocks, where we might get some water. Not a drop was to be found. Though we had been travelling in the rain all day and accomplished thirty miles, we were obliged to camp without water at last. There was good feed for the horses, and, as it was still raining, they could not be very greatly in want of water. We fixed up our tent and retired for the night, the wind blowing furiously, as might reasonably be expected, for it was the eve