"The creek was marked by a line of gum-trees, from the mouth of the glen to its junction with the main branch, in which, excepting in isolated spots, water was no longer to be found. The Red Hill (afterwards called Mount Poole) bore N. N.W. from us, distant three and a-half miles; between us and it there were undulating plains, covered with stones or salsolaceous herbage, excepting in the hollows wherein there was a little grass. Behind us were level stony plains, with small sandy undulations bounded by brush, over which the Black Hill was visible, distant ten miles, bearing S.S.E. from the Red Hill. To the eastward, the country was as I have described it, hilly. Westward at a quarter of a mile the low range, through which Depôt Creek forces itself, shut out from our view the extensive plains on which it rises." This then was Sturt's prison, although at first he had not realised that in spite of every precaution, his retreat was cut off until the next rainfall. Of Sturt's existence and occupation during this dreary period little can be said. He tried in every direction, until convinced of the uselessness of so doing, sometimes encouraged and led on by shallow pools in some fragmentary creek bed, at others, seeing nothing before him but hopeless aridity. Now, too, he found himself attacked with what he then thought was rheumatism, but proved to be scurvy, and Poole and Browne too were afflicted in the same way. We now come to one of the picturesque incidents that Sturt has introduced in his narrative, and that help to fix on our memory the strangely weird picture of the lonely band of men confronted with the unaccustomed forces of nature in this wilderness. "As we rode across the stony plain lying between us and the hills, the heated and parching blasts that came upon us, were more than we could bear. We were in the centre of the plain, when Mr. Browne drew my attention to a number of small black specks in the upper air. These spots increasing momentarily in size, were evidently approaching us rapidly. In an incredibly short space of time, we were surrounded by hundreds of the common kite, stooping down to within a few feet of us, and then turning away after having eyed us steadily. Several approached us so closely, that they threw themselves back to avoid contact, opening their beaks and spreading out their talons. The long flight of these birds, reaching from the ground into the heavens, put me strongly in mind of one of Martin's beautiful designs, in which he produces the effect of distance by a multitude of objects vanishing from the view." Sturt, during his detention in the depôt, made one desperate attempt to the north, when he succeeded in getting a mile above the 28th parallel, but found nothing to repay him for his trouble. And so week after week of this fearful monotony passed on without hardly a break or change.