11th September.
On taking into consideration the reduced number and strength of our
horses, it was quite evident that we had but little prospect of being
able to cross the tract of dry sandy country that had already occasioned
us so much loss and trouble; yet there were many reasons to stimulate us
to make the attempt. Not only had we now attained to within a very few
miles of the longitude in which, from various geographical data, there
are just grounds for believing that a large river may be found to exist,
draining Central Australia, but the character of the country appeared
strongly to indicate the vicinity of such a feature; added to which, the
gradual decline in the elevation of the country, notwithstanding our
increasing distance from the coast, tended towards the same conclusion.
Nor should we omit the strong evidences that the remarkable ridges of
drift-sand which encumbered the plains must in the first instance, have
been brought from the interior by water, and then have been blown by the
strong prevailing south-east winds across the country in a direction at
least 50 degrees from that which they originally came from; this, with
the clean water-worn appearance of the sand, the bold outlines of the
hills seen to the far east, and the number of native fires observed in
the same direction, must all tend to support the hypothesis that the
western half of Australia is probably drained by a large river in about
this meridian. I could not, therefore, help regretting more than ever
that we should be driven back at such an interesting spot; but mature
reflection convinced me that any further attempt with our present means,
at this period of the year, was almost certain to be attended with the
most disastrous results; I therefore decided upon adopting the only other
useful course open to us--that of examining down to the sea the rivers
already discovered. With this in view, we to-day fell back five or six
miles across the ranges to a tributary to the Oakover, called the Davis,
when one of the horses became so crippled by a strain in the loins that
we were obliged to halt to give him a chance of recovery, affording me
leisure to verify our position by observing another set of lunar
distances, which I found to agree well with those formerly taken ten
miles to the westward. Camp 78.