On the 25th of January, the Hero arrived with the oats and bran he had sent back for. So poverty-stricken was the country that Eyre, in the circumstances, resolved to send back nearly the whole of his expedition by the vessel, and then, with only a small party, to push through to King George's Sound or perish in the attempt. Baffled successively to the north and to the west, Eyre had been put upon his mettle, and he could not endure the thought of returning to Adelaide a beaten man. On the 31st of January the cutter departed, and Eyre, Baxter, and three native boys, one of whom had come by the vessel on her last trip, were left alone to face the eight hundred miles of desert solitude before them. Some time was spent in making their final preparations, but on the 24th of February they had actually begun their journey when, to their astonishment, they heard two shots fired at sea. Thinking that a whaler had put in to the bay, Eyre turned back, but found the Hero again in port with an urgent request from Adelaide to abandon his desperate project, and return in the vessel. Upon a man of Eyre's temperament, this recall could have only one effect, that of strengthening his resolve to proceed westward at all hazards. He did not emulate Cortez by burning his ship behind him, but he none the less effectually deprived himself of means of retreat by dismissing the little Hero. It was at the close of a hot summer when Eyre started, and the nature of the sandy soil, combined with the low prickly scrub, soon began to hamper their progress and render the lack of water especially severe. On one side of them, flanking their line of march, were the cliffs of the Great Bight, against which thundered the ever-restless southern rollers; on the other there stretched a limitless expanse of dark, gloomy scrub. Their only hope of relief was the faint chance of striking some native path which might lead them to an infrequent soakage-spring. Even in these depressing circumstances, Eyre seems to have found time to express his admiration of Nature as she then revealed herself to him:-- "Distressing and fatal as the continuance of these cliffs might prove to us, there was a grandeur and sublimity in their appearance that was most imposing, and which struck me with admiration. Stretching out before us in lofty, unbroken outline, they presented the singular and romantic appearance of massy battlements of masonry, supported by huge buttresses, glittering in the morning sun which had now risen upon them, and made the scene beautiful even amidst the dangers and anxieties of our situation." Five days of slow, dragging toil passed, until, with the horses at their last gasp, and the men baked and parched, they found relief in some native wells amongst the sandhills, at a point where the cliffs receded from the sea.