Mr.Stuart shot a beautiful ground parrot as we were crossing it, on a bearing of 345 degrees, or little more than a N.and by W.course.At 6 1/2 miles we ascended some heavy sandy ridges, without any regularity in their disposition, but lying in great confusion.
Toiling over these, at seven or eight miles farther we sighted a fine sheet of water, bearing N.and distant about two miles.

At another mile I altered my course to 325 degrees, to pass to the westward of this new feature, which then proved to be a lake about the size of Lake Bonney, that is to say from 10 to 12 miles in circumference.

The ridge by which we had approached it terminated suddenly and directly over it; to our right there were other ridges terminating in a similar manner, with rushy flats between them; eastward the country was dark and very low; to the north there was a desert of glittering white sand in low hillocks, scattered over with dwarf brush, and on it the heat was playing as over a furnace.

Immediately beneath me to the west there was a flat leading to the shore of the lake, and on the western side a bright red sand hill, full eighty feet high, shut out the view in that quarter.

This ridge was not altogether a mile and a half in length, and behind it there were other ridges of the same colour bounding the horizon with edges as sharp as icebergs.
I did not yet know whether the waters of the lake were salt or fresh, although I feared they were salt.