It seemed that his party would be lamentably deficient in means for such an expedition, and that he had hardly the energy for such an undertaking. In this work of Australian exploring men have to carry flour and tea with them, and to be satisfied to live upon flour and tea,--to protect themselves from the blacks,--to run the risk of failing water,--and to be constant, from month to month, without excitement to keep their courage warm. Our new acquaintance seemed to be going because he might as well go as let it alone;--but it may be that under that deportment were hidden all the energies of a Marco Polo, a Columbus, a Sturt, or a Livingstone. We fared sumptuously at the absent squatter’s station, and went on our way the next morning. I had not then seen a salt-bush country, though I subsequently passed through such a region in a part of New South Wales, of which I said a few words in speaking of that colony. Here, in the salt-bush of South Australia, there was not a blade of grass when I visited it. The salt-bush itself is an ugly grey shrub, about two feet high, which seems to possess the power of bringing forth its foliage without moisture. This foliage is impregnated with salt, and both sheep and cattle will feed upon it and thrive. It does not produce wool of the best class,--but it is regarded as being a very safe food for sheep, because it rarely fails. At the period of my visit the country was in want of rain; and I was assured that when the rain, then expected, should fall, the surface of the ground would be covered with grass. I can only say that I never saw a country more bare of grass. But for miles together,--over hundreds of square miles,--the salt-bush spreads itself; and as long as that lives the sheep will not be starved. Sometimes this shrub was diversified by a blue bush, a bush very much the same as the salt-bush in form, though of a dull slate-colour instead of grey. On this the sheep will not feed. There is also a poisonous shrub which the sheep will eat,--as to which there seemed to be an opinion that it was fatal only to travelling sheep, and not to those regularly pastured on the country.