At Port Lincoln he could not obtain the extra supplies he wanted without sending to Adelaide; it was therefore the 24th of October when he finally started for Streaky Bay.  He found that Baxter had arrived there safely, and was anxiously awaiting him.

He now camped for many weeks at Fowler’s Bay, which was as far as the cutter they now had, the Hero, could act as convoy, her charter not extending beyond South Australian waters.  The Waterwitch having sprung a leak, the Hero had taken her place.  During the time that they remained there, Eyre made many journeys ahead to estimate his chances of getting across the dry and barren country intervening between him and the Sound, but the outlook was disheartening.  He met some natives, who all assured him that there was no water ahead; nor could he find any but some brackish water obtained by digging in some sandhills.  Worse than all, he sacrificed three of his best horses during these fruitless attempts.

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:—­