As to the eastward, so here the ridges we had just crossed abutted upon it, and as many of them were lower than the line of the horizon, they looked like sea dunes, backed by storm clouds, from the dusky colour of the plain.
After surveying this gloomy expanse of stoneclad desert we looked for some object on the N.W.horizon upon which to move across it, but none presented itself, excepting a very distant sand hill bearing 308 degrees, towards which I determined to proceed.

We accordingly descended to the plain, and soon found ourselves on its uneven surface.

There was a narrow space destitute of stones at the base of the sand hill, stamped all over with the impressions of natives' feet.

From eighty to one hundred men, women, and children must have passed along there; and it appeared to me that this had been a migration of some tribe or other during the wet weather, but it was very clear those poor people never ventured on the plain itself.
Descended from our high position, we could no longer see the sand hill just noticed, but held on our course by compass like a ship at sea, being two hours and forty minutes in again sighting it; and reaching it in somewhat less than an hour afterwards, calculated the distance at thirteen miles.

As we approached, it looked like an island in the midst of the ocean; but we found a large though shallow sheet of water amongst the stones under it, for which we were exceedingly thankful.