Once through the scrub, we came again into gum-timbered country, and when fifty miles east of Kurnalpi crossed a narrow belt of auriferous country, but, failing to find water, were unable to stop.  In a few miles we were in desert country—­undulations of sand and spinifex, with frequent clumps of dense mallee, a species of eucalyptus, with several straggling stems growing from one root, and little foliage except at the ends of the branches, an untidy and melancholy-looking tree.  There was no change in the country till after noon on the 18th, when we noticed some grass-trees, or black-boys, smaller than those seen near the coast, and presently struck the outskirts of a little oasis, and immediately after an old camel pad (Lindsay’s in 1892, formed by a caravan of over fifty animals), which we followed for a few minutes, until the welcome sight of Queen Victoria Spring met our eyes.  A most remarkable spot, and one that cannot be better described than by quoting the words of its discoverer, Ernest Giles, in 1875, who, with a party of five companions, fifteen pack, and seven riding camels, happened on this spring just when they most needed water.

Giles says of it:—­

“It is the most singularly placed water I have ever seen, lying in a small hollow in the centre of a little grassy flat and surrounded by clumps of funereal pines. . . .  The water is no doubt permanent, for it is supplied by the drainage of the sandhills which surround it and it rests on a substratum of impervious clay.  It lies exposed to view in a small, open basin, the water being about only one hundred and fifty yards in circumference and from two to three feet deep.  Further up the slopes at much higher levels native wells had been sunk in all directions—­in each and all of these there was water.  Beyond the immediate precincts of this open space the scrubs abound. . . .  Before I leave this spot I had perhaps better remark that it might prove a very difficult, perhaps dangerous, place to any other traveller to attempt to find, because although there are many white sandhills in the neighbourhood, the open space on which the water lies is so small in area and so closely surrounded by scrubs, that it cannot be seen from any conspicuous one, nor can any conspicuous sandhill, distinguishable at any distance, be seen from it.  On the top of the banks above the wells was a beaten corroboree path, where the denizens of the desert have often held their feasts and dances.  Some grass-trees grew in the vicinity of this spring to a height of over twenty feet. . . .”

A charming spot indeed! but we found it to be hardly so cheerful as this description would lead one to expect.  For at first sight the Spring was dry.  The pool of water was now a dry clay-pan; the numerous native wells were there, but all were dry.  The prospect was sufficiently gloomy, for our water was all but done, and poor Tommy, the pony, in spite of an allowance of a billy-full per night, was in a very