This hill is visible from ten miles due North of the well, from which point it shows up prominently.  Continuing a northerly march from that point we found that the gravel and stones for the next few miles became much rougher, and made walking tiring work.  Occasionally mulga thickets free from stones had to be passed through; in these there often occurred very shallow depressions overgrown with grass and floored with clay.  From the floors rose high, pinnacled ant-heaps, built by the white ant; these hills, grouped into little colonies, sometimes attained a height of eleven feet, and had in the distance a weird appearance, reminding me in shape, at least, of the picture of Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt.  Around these clay flats large white gum-trees were growing, a different species from the desert gum, having a quite smooth bark.

On September 1st we sighted the Alfred and Marie Range due East of us.  I had expected to find this almost on our course; however, my reckoning differs from Giles’s by eight miles, my position for the range being to the East of his.  As we approached the range the country improved greatly, and had every appearance of having experienced recent rains, for green herbage [HALORAGIS, and TRICHINIUM ALOPECUROIDEUM.] was in places abundant—­that is to say, little patches of it, perhaps twenty paces across.  These we saw were feeding-grounds for kangaroos and wallabies.  Turkey tracks were fairly numerous; of the latter we saw six, and shot one.  They are very wary birds and not easily stalked.  A very good plan for shooting them is for one man to hide in a bush or behind a tree whilst the other circles round a good way off, and very slowly advances, and so drives the turkey past the hidden sportsman.  He, if he is wise, will let the turkey rise before firing, as their wings are easily broken, whilst the thick breast-feathers readily turn shot.

We made camp one mile from the foot of the hills, and Charlie and I walked over to see what was to be seen.  This range is of sandstone, and made up of a series of flat-topped hills of peculiar shapes, standing on the usual rough, stony slopes.  The hills are traceable in a broken line for a considerable distance, perhaps twenty miles, in a North-Easterly direction.  No doubt some good water-hole exists amongst these hills, judging from the tracks of kangaroos, turkeys, and dingoes.  I fancy that animals and birds follow up rain-storms from place to place to take advantage of the good feed which springs into life, and it is most probable that for ten months in the year these hills are undisturbed by animal or bird life.  Certainly Giles found that to be the case when he crossed them in 1876; so disgusted was he with their appearance that he did not trouble to investigate them at all.  Indeed, he could have no other than sad remembrances of this range, for he first sighted it from the East, when attempting to cross the interior from East to West—­an attempt that failed, owing to the impossibility of traversing this desert of rolling sand and gravel with horses only as a means of transport.  Baffled, he was forced to return, leaving behind him, lost for ever, his companion Gibson.  After him this desert is named, and how he lost his life is related in Giles’s journals.