4th March.
Left the camp at 5.50 a.m., and steered south-west over a very level
country, with shallow hollows filled with a dense growth of acacia, and
at 7.30 struck the creek with a sandy channel and narrow flats, covered
with salsola and salicornia. The pools were very shallow, and gradually
became salt, and at 10.15 it spread into the dry bed of a salt lake more
than a mile in diameter. This was connected by a broad channel with a
pool of salt-water in it, with a second dry salt lake eight miles in
diameter. As there was little prospect of water ahead and the day far
advanced, we returned to one of the brackish pools and encamped. The
country passed was of a worthless character, and so much impregnated with
salt that the surface of the ground is often covered with a thin crust of
salt.
Latitude by e Argus 20 degrees 10 minutes 40 seconds.
5th March.
Started from the camp at 5.45 a.m., and steered south-south-east through
the acacia wood to the lake, and then south by east across the dry bed of
the lake towards a break in the trees on the southern side. Here we found
a creek joining the lake from the south-west, in which there were some
shallow pools. We then steered east, to intersect any channel by which
the waters of the lake might flow to the south or south-east, and passing
through a wood of acacia entered the sandy desert. As some low rocky
hills were visible to the east we steered for them. At 2.10 halted half a
mile from the hills, and then ascended them on foot. They were very
barren and rocky, scarcely eighty feet above the plain, formed of
sandstone, the strata horizontal. From the summit of the hill nothing was
visible but one unbounded waste of sandy ridges and low rocky hillocks,
which lay to the south-east of the hill. All was one impenetrable desert,
as the flat and sandy surface, which could absorb the waters of the
creek, was not likely to originate watercourses. Descending the hill,
which I named Mount Wilson, after the geologist attached to the
expedition, we returned towards the creek at the south end of the lake,
reaching it at 9.30.
6th March.
As the day was extremely hot and the horses required rest and food, we
remained at the camp. Ducks were numerous in some of the pools, but so
wild that only two were shot. The early part of the day was clear, with a
hot strong breeze varying from west to south-east. At 1 p.m. there was a
heavy thunder-squall from the south-east, which swept a cloud of salt and
sand from the dry surface of the lake. The squall was followed by a
slight shower.
Latitude by Canopus 20 degrees 16 minutes 22 seconds.