Wednesday, 29th May, Chain of Ponds. Started at 7.20 a.m. with Thring, Woodforde, and Wall, and nine horses, to follow a native track, which is leading to the westward. At 9.20 made the track; its course, west-north-west. At twenty-eight miles camped without water. The track led us into very thick wood and scrub, and at five miles became invisible. I still continued on the same bearing through the scrub. We have again met with the mulga--a little different from what we have seen before, growing very straight, from thirty to forty feet high, the bark stringy, the leaf much larger and thicker. Amongst it is the hedge-tree. We had seven miles of it very dense, when we again met with an open plain. At three miles entered another dense wood and scrub, like that passed through in the morning. To-day's journey has been over plains of grass, through forest and scrub, without water. In the last five miles we passed through a little spinifex, and the soil is becoming sandy. Wind, south. Thursday, 30th May, Sturt Plains. As I can see no hope of water, I will leave Woodforde and Wall with the horses, take Thring with me, and proceed ten miles, to see if there will be a change in that distance. Went into a terrible thick wood and scrub for eleven miles and a half, without the least sign of a change--the scrub, in fact, becoming more dense; it is scarcely penetrable. I sent Thring up one of the tallest trees. Nothing to be seen but a fearfully dense wood and scrub all round. Again I am forced to retreat through want of water. The last five miles of the eleven the soil is becoming very sandy, with spinifex and a little grass. It is impossible to say in which way the country dips, for, in forty-five miles travelled over, we have not seen the least sign of a watershed, it is so level. Returned to where I left the others, followed our tracks back, and at eleven miles camped. Horses nearly done up with heavy travelling and the heat of the sun, which is excessive. It is very vexing and dispiriting to be forced back with only a little more than one hundred miles between Mr. Gregory's last camp on the Camfield and me. If I could have found water near the end of this journey, I think I could have forced the rest. It is very galling to be turned back after trying so many times. Wind, east.