I altered our course, therefore, towards the hills, and we shortly crossed the narrow arm of a salt-lake; on the far side several tracks of emus and natives caught my eye, and I sent Charlie on Satan to scout.  Before long he reported a fine sheet of water just ahead.  This, as may be imagined, came as a surprise to us; for a more unlikely thing to find, considering the dry state of the rock-holes we had come upon, could not have been suggested.  However, there it was; and very glad we were to see it, and lost no time in making camp and hobbling the camels.  What a glorious sight in this parched land!—­so resting to the eye after days of sand!  How the camels wallowed in the fresh water! how they drank! and what a grand feed they had on the herbage (TRICHINIUM ALOPECUROIDEUM) on the banks of the lagoon!  Charlie and I spent the afternoon in further exploring our surroundings, and on return to camp found our mates busily engaged in plucking some teal and waterhen which they had shot.  The latter were numerous, and Godfrey at one shot bagged nine.  They are almost identical in size and appearance with our British waterhen, though they seem to have less power of flight, thus enabling us to drive them from one gun to the other, and so secure a fine lot for the pot.  I doubt if in civilisation they would be considered good eating, but after tinned horrors they were a perfect delicacy.  The teal were as numerous; but though there were several emu tracks we saw none of those queer birds.  Our bag for three days was seventeen teal, twelve waterhen, one pigeon.  The natives whose smoke we had seen, disappeared shortly after our arrival.  Godfrey, whilst shooting, came across their camp; the occupants, a man, woman, and child, fled as soon as they caught sight of him, leaving a shield behind them, and did not appear again.  This small oasis deserves particular attention, for it is bound to play an important part in any scheme of a stock route from the cattle-stations of Central Australia to the Murchison or Coolgardie Goldfields.

There are three lagoons (or deep clay-pans) connected by a shallow, sandy channel.  They are entirely surrounded by sandhills, excepting at one spot, where a narrow creek breaks through the sand-ridge.  Of the three the largest and most South-Westerly one is nearly circular, and has a diameter of 600 yards with a depth varying from 1 ft. 6 in. to 4 ft. 6 in.  It is capable of holding considerably more water than we saw in it.  The bottom is of rock, a sort of cement in which ironstone is visible in the middle, and of clay near the edges.  From the N.W. a narrow channel enters, traceable for a distance of two miles to a cane-grass swamp; into this, small watercourses, and the tail end of a larger creek lead.

Following up this flat, it will be found to develop into a defined channel running through a grassy flat timbered with bloodwoods (a kind of eucalyptus).  This creek rises in the sandstone tablelands to the N. of Mount Allott, and in it at its head, is situated Alexander Spring (Forrest. 1874).