We saw but little change in the character of the country generally as we rode through it, but observed that it was more open to the right, in which direction we passed several extensive plains.

There were heaps of small pebbles also of ironstone and quartz on some of the flats we crossed.

We halted at the foot of a sand hill, where there was a good deal of grass, after a vain search for water, of which we did not see a drop during the day.

The night of the 17th, like the preceding one, was bitterly cold, with the wind at S.W.During the early part of this day we passed over high ridges of sand, thickly covered with spinifex, and a new polygonum, but subsequently crossed some flats of much greater extent than usual, and of much better soil, but the country again fell off in quality and appearance, although on the whole the tract we had crossed on our present journey was certainly better than that we traversed in going to Lake Torrens.

We halted rather earlier than usual, at a creek containing a long pond of water between two and three feet deep.