Another theory, and that held by Mr. Panton, is that the deserts of Central and Western Australia hold the secret of his death.  This theory is based, I believe, on the fact that Gregory, in the fifties, found on the Elsey Creek (North Australia) what he supposed to be the camp of a white man.  This in conjunction with some vague reports by natives would point to Leichardt having travelled for the first part of his journey considerably further north than was his original intention, with a view to making use of the northern rivers.  Supposing that his was the camp seen on the Elsey, a tributary of the Victoria River, it would have been necessary for him to alter his course to nearly due South-West to enable him to reach the Swan River.  This course would have taken him through the heart of the desert, through the very country we now were in.  For my part I think that trade from tribe to tribe sufficiently accounts for the presence of such articles as tent-pegs and pieces of iron, though strangely enough an iron tent-peg is not commonly used nowadays, stakes of wood being as serviceable, and none but a large expedition would be burdened with the unnecessary weight of iron pegs.

CHAPTER X

THE DESERT OF PARALLEL SAND-RIDGES

My position for Family Well is lat. 22 degrees 40 minutes, long. 125 degrees 54 minutes.  The well, as already stated, is situated at the foot of the southern slope of a high sand-ridge.  This ridge is the first of a series of parallel banks of sand which extend, with occasional breaks, from lat. 22 degrees 41 minutes to 19 degrees 20 minutes—­a distance of nearly 250 miles in a straight line.  From September 16th to November 16th we were never out of sight of a sand ridge, and during that time travelled 420 miles, taking into account all deviations consequent upon steering for smokes and tracking up natives, giving an average of not quite seven miles a day, including stoppages.  This ghastly desert is somewhat broken in its northern portion by the occurrence of sandstone tablelands, the Southesk Tablelands; the southern part, however, viz., from lat. 22 degrees 41 minutes to lat. 20 degrees 45 minutes presents nothing to the eye but ridge upon ridge of sand, running with the regularity of the drills in a ploughed field.  A vast, howling wilderness of high, spinifex-clad ridges of red sand, so close together that in a day’s march we crossed from sixty to eighty ridges, so steep that often the camels had to crest them on their knees, and so barren and destitute of vegetation (saving spinifex) that one marvels how even camels could pick up a living.  I estimate their average vertical height from trough to crest at fifty to sixty feet.  Some were mere rises, whilst others reached a height of considerably over one hundred feet.  Sometimes the ridges would be a quarter of a mile apart, and sometimes ridge succeeded ridge like the waves of the sea.  On