27th May.
Having determined in the first instance to strike to the westward, with a
view to cutting any large rivers coming from the interior that might
serve to lead us through the rocky hills that hemmed us in in that
quarter, we this morning took a south-south-west by south course to 11.40
a.m. when we crossed a dry stream-bed sixty yards wide, coming out of the
granite ranges to the southward, the country becoming more barren as we
edged upon the spurs of the rocky hills. At 2.0 p.m. we halted on the
banks of another stream-bed of the same size as the last, when it came on
to rain; resuming our march at 4.10, steering west to 6.0, when we
encamped on a dry gully, with a little feed near it. Having pitched the
tents, it continued to rain until 11.0 p.m., when a sudden rush of water
swept down the valley, filling the watercourse and carrying away our
fire, and before we had time to remove the baggage to higher ground, we
had a foot of water in the camp. Fortunately nothing was lost or injured,
and it only served as a useful lesson for the future. Camp 4.
28th May.
The early part of the day was employed drying the stores, so that we did
not make a start until late. Four and a half hours' travelling over stony
country, principally covered with triodia, but containing several patches
of good grass, brought us to another river fifty yards wide, in which
were a few pools. This stream was followed up to 5 p.m., when we left it,
and halted on an open plain close to some shallow clay-pans containing
rainwater; our course for the day having been about south-west eleven
miles. Camp 5.
Latitude 21 degrees 7 minutes.
29th May.
By an azimuth of the sun's centre taken this morning, the magnetic
variation was observed to be about 20 minutes west. Steering north 230
degrees east magnetic, soon brought us out of the hills into a plain
extending as far as the eye could reach to the north-west, with a few
patches of good grass upon it, but mostly covered with triodia, which was
now just ripe, yielding fine heads of seed, which the horses are very
fond of. At thirteen miles struck the channel of a considerable river
coming from the south. As this offered us a fair prospect of working
inland, and we had already attained nearly to longitude 116 degrees, or
about the meridian of the mouth of the Alma, the stream was followed up
for an hour, its average breadth being over 200 yards. At 4.40 encamped
at a fine spring on the bank of a deep pool, under a cliff of metamorphic
sandstone nearly 300 feet high; a cane, much resembling a Spanish red,
growing in considerable quantities near the water. Camp 6.
Latitude 21 degrees 18 minutes; longitude 116 degrees 4 minutes.