An extensive grassy flat extended to the westward of the lake, bounded by box-trees, and the channel of the creek still held its course to the N.E.I could not therefore but suppose, that this was a junction from that point, and therefore determined on passing to the opposite side, in anticipation that I should again come on our old friend amidst the trees.

We accordingly crossed at the bottom of the little lake, and in so doing found amidst the other herbage two withered stalks of millet.
The grassy woodland continued for several miles, and as it was evidently subject to flood, we were in momentary expectation of seeing a denser mass of foliage before us, as indicating the course of the creek, but we suddenly debouched upon open plains, bounded by distant sand hills.

There was not now a tree to be seen, but samphire bushes were mixed with the polygonum growing round about; as the changes however in this singular and anomalous region had been so sudden and instantaneous, I still held on my course, but the farther I advanced into the plains the more did the ground betray a salt formation.
We halted an hour after sunset, under a sand hill about 16 miles distant from the creek, without having succeeded in our search for water, for although we passed several muddy pools at which the birds still continued to drink they were too thick for our animals.
The prospect from the top of the sand hill under which we had formed our bivouac, was the most cheerless and I may add the most forbidding of any that our eyes had wandered over, during this long and anxious journey.

To the west and north-west there were lines of heavy sand ridges, so steep and rugged as to deter me from any attempt to cross them with my jaded horses.

To the north and north-east a dark green plain covered with samphire bushes (amidst which the dry beds of small salt lagoons, as white as snow, formed a singular and striking contrast) was to be seen extending for about eight miles.