At six miles we arrived at the base, and ascending one of them, found that it was flanked on both sides by others; the space between the ridges being occupied by the white and dry beds of salt lagoons.

The reader will, I am sure, sympathise with me in these repeated disappointments, for the very aspect of these dreaded deposits, if I may so call them, withered hope.

To whatever point of the compass I turned, whether to the west, to the north, or to the east, these heart-depressing features existed to damp the spirits of my men, and irresistibly to depress my own; but it was not for me to repine under such circumstances, I had undertaken a task, and in the performance of it had to take the country as it laid before me, whether a Desert or an Eden.

Still whatever moral convictions we may have, we cannot always control our feelings.

The direction of the ridges was nearly north and south, somewhat to the westward of the first point, so that at a distance of more than two degrees to the eastward they almost preserved their parallelism.