It is impossible for me to describe the nature of the country over which we passed, for the first eight miles.  We rode through brushes of polygonum, under rough-gum, without a blade of vegetation, the whole space being subject to inundation.  We then got on small plains of firmer surface, and red soil, but these soon changed again for the former; and at 4 p.m. we found ourselves advanced about two miles on a plain that stretched away before us, and bounded the horizon.  It was dismally brown; a few trees only served to mark the distance.  Up one of the highest I sent Hopkinson, who reported that he could not see the end of it, and that all around looked blank and desolate.  It is a singular fact, that during the whole day, we had not seen a drop of water or a blade of grass.

Desolating effects of the drought.

To have stopped where we were, would, therefore, have been impossible; to have advanced, would probably have been ruin.  Had there been one favorable circumstance to have encouraged me with the hope of success, I would have proceeded.  Had we picked up a stone as indicating our approach to high land, I would have gone on; or had there been a break in the level of the country, or even a change in the vegetation.  But we had left all traces of the natives far behind us; and this seemed a desert they never entered—­that not even a bird inhabited.  I could not encourage a hope of success, and, therefore, gave up the point; not from want of means, but a conviction of the inutility of any further efforts.  If there is any blame to be attached to the measure, it is I who am in fault, but none who had not like me traversed the interior at such a season, would believe the state of the country over which I had wandered.  During the short interval I had been out, I had seen rivers cease to flow before me, and sheets of water disappear; and had it not been for a merciful Providence, should, ere reaching the Darling, have been overwhelmed by misfortune.

I am giving no false picture of the reality.  So long had the drought continued, that the vegetable kingdom was almost annihilated, and minor vegetation had disappeared.  In the creeks, weeds had grown and withered, and grown again; and young saplings were now rising in their beds, nourished by the moisture that still remained; but the largest forest trees were drooping, and many were dead.  The emus, with outstretched necks, gasping for breath, searched the channels of the rivers for water, in vain; and the native dog, so thin that it could hardly walk, seemed to implore some merciful hand to despatch it.  How the natives subsisted it was difficult to say, but there was no doubt of the scarcity of food among them.

We arrived in camp at a late hour, and having nothing to detain us longer, prepared for our retreat in the morning.  The natives had remained with the party during the greater part of the day, and had only left them a short time prior to our arrival,