Yesterday, being the King’s birthday, Mr. Cunningham planted under Mount Brogden acorns, peach and apricot-stones, and quince-seeds, with the hope rather than the expectation that they would grow and serve to commemorate the day and situation, should these desolate plains be ever again visited by civilized man, of which, however, I think there is very little probability.

Our observation placed the situation of the tent in lat. 34. 13. 33.  S., long. 146.  E.; the variation of the compass 8. 08.  E.

June 6.—­A mild pleasant morning:  set forward on our journey to the westward and north-west, in hopes of finding a better country:  at two o’clock halted about two miles from Peel’s range, after going about eight miles through a very thick cypress scrub; the country equally bad as on any of the foregoing days.  We saw no signs of water during our route:  the whole country seems burnt up with long continued drought; no traces of natives, or any game seen.

After two hours’ search a small hole of water was found at the foot of the range, sufficient for the horses, and in a hole in the rocks a little clearer was procured for ourselves.

June 7.—­Set forward to the north-west, the horses being a little fresher than for some days past.  Halted at four o’clock, having gone ten miles through a country which, for barrenness and desolation, can I think have no equal; it was a continued scrub, and where there was timber it chiefly consisted of small cypress:  we saw no water as usual, but stopped on some burnt grass near the base of a low range of stony hills west of Peel’s range, from which we are distant eight or ten miles.  These ranges abound with native dogs; their howlings are incessant, day as well as night:  as we saw no game, their principal prey must be rats, which have almost undermined this loose sandy country.

As we had brought a small keg of water with us, we did not on this occasion suffer absolute want:  we hope that the instinct of the horses would lead them to water in the course of the night—­but we were too sanguine.

Our spirits were not a little depressed by the desolation and want that seemed to reign around us:  the scene was never varied, except from bad to worse.  However, the scarcity of water and grass for the horses are our greatest real privations, for the temperature is mild and equable beyond what could be expected at this season, and it is this circumstance alone that enables us to proceed:  the horses are too much reduced to endure rainy weather, even if the loose soil of the country would permit us to travel over it.