Giles and Gibson had, as a gigantic effort of perseverance, penetrated 98 miles into this inhospitable waste. But no further could they go. Here, on the 23rd of April, the utmost bourne of the expedition was reached. One of the two horses here knocked up and died. This was the last time Gibson was seen. Giles did his utmost to bring him help, but he was never found. His bones lie somewhere in that awful wilderness, which to this day bears his name. When the furthest point was reached better fortune seemed to loom in the distance. Another range of lofty mountains was descried athwart the western horizon, which he called the Alfred and Marie, after the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. They might as well have been in the moon so far as Mr. Giles was concerned in his now pitiable plight. His own reflections were deplorably bitter:--"The hills bounding the western horizon were between thirty and forty miles away, and it was with extreme regret that I was compelled to relinquish a further attempt to reach them. Oh, how ardently I longed for a camel; how ardently I gazed upon the scene! At this moment I would even my jewel eternal have sold for power to span that gulf that lay between. But it could not be; situated as I was, I was compelled to retreat, and the sooner the better." Such was his destiny. After almost twelve months' wanderings in the wilderness, three of the four explorers escaped with their lives, and reached the central telegraph line on the 13th of July. III. Such battling with relentless fortune would have extinguished the spirit of adventure in most men. In the case of Mr. Giles it fanned it into a brighter flame. Refusing to be baffled, his noble perseverance was at length rewarded with a double journey across the western half of the continent. This expedition was fitted out by Sir Thomas Elder, of Adelaide, who supplied him with nineteen camels and provisions for eighteen months. The party consisted of Messrs. Giles, Tietkens, Young, A. Ross, P. Nicholls, Selah (an Afghan), and a black boy. The route proposed was from Youldah to Perth, and the start was made on the 27th July, 1875. This, though a successful, was a very trying journey. They crossed desert after desert for a distance of 1,500 miles. On one occasion they were reduced to the last extremity of thirst, and saved from perishing by the happy discovery of a spring in the Great Victoria Desert, 600 miles from the out-settlements of Western Australia. They reached Perth on the 10th November, having travelled a distance of 2,575 miles in about five months. The following is Mr. Giles's summary of the journey:--"The expedition has been successful, yet the country traversed for more than a thousand miles in a straight line was simply an undulating bed of dense scrub, except between the 125th and 127th meridians, the latitude being nearly the 30th parallel. Here an arm of the Great Southern Plain ran up and crossed our track, which, though grassy, was quite waterless.