excellent watchdog, and not a bird can come near the camp without his giving warning. Alec had plenty of firearms and ammunition to defend himself with, in case of an attack from the natives. This, however, I did not anticipate; indeed, I wished they would come (in a friendly way), and had instructed Alec to endeavour to detain one or two of them until my return if they should chance to approach. Alec was a very strange, indeed disagreeable and sometimes uncivil, sort of man; he had found our travels so different from his preconceived ideas, as he thought he was going on a picnic, and he often grumbled and declared he would like to go back again. However, to remain at the camp, with nothing whatever to do and plenty to eat, admirably suited him, and I felt no compunction in leaving him by himself. I would not have asked him to remain if I were in any way alarmed at his position. We travelled now by a slightly different route, more easterly, as there were other ridges in that direction, and we might find another and better watering place than that at the pass. It is only at or near ridges in this strange region that the traveller can expect to find water, as in the sandy beds of scrub intervening between them, water would simply sink away. We passed through some very thick mulga, which, being mostly dead, ripped our pack-bags, clothes, and skin, as we had continually to push the persistent boughs and branches aside to penetrate it. We reached a hill in twenty miles, and saw at a glance that no favourable signs of obtaining water existed, for it was merely a pile of loose stones or rocks standing up above the scrubs around. The view was desolate in the extreme; we had now come thirty miles, but we pushed on ten miles for another hill, to the south-east, and after penetrating the usual scrub, we reached its base in the dark, and camped. In the morning I climbed the hill, but no water could be seen or procured. This hill was rugged with broken granite boulders, scrubby with mulga and bushes, and covered with triodia to its summit. To the south a vague and strange horizon was visible; it appeared flat, as though a plain of great extent existed there, but as the mirage played upon it, I could not make anything of it. My old friend the high mountain loomed large and abrupt at a great distance off, and it bore 8 degrees 30' west from here, too great a distance for us to proceed to it at once, without first getting water for our horses, as it was possible that no water might exist even in the neighbourhood of such a considerable mountain. The horses rambled in the night; when they were found we started away for the little pass and glen where we knew water was to be got, and which was now some thirty miles away to the west-north-west. We reached it somewhat late. The day was hot, thermometer 98 degrees in shade, and the horses very thirsty, but they could get no water until we had dug a place for them. Although we had