I preserved a slow uniform pace, proceeding still in a south by east direction, that is, in a straight line for Perth.

The same sandy sterile country was around, thinly clothed with Banksia trees.
We had marched for about an hour and a quarter and in this time had only made two miles, when we suddenly arrived upon the edge of a dried-up bed of a sedgy swamp, which lay in the centre of a small plain, where we saw the foot-mark of a native imprinted on the sand, and again our hearts beat with hope, for this sign appeared to announce that we were once more entering the regions of animal life.

We soon found that another part of the swamp was thickly marked with the footsteps of women and children; and as no water-baskets were scattered about no doubt could exist but that we were in the vicinity of water.

We soon discovered several native wells dug in the bed of the swamp; but these were all dry, and I began again to fear that I was disappointed, when Kaiber suddenly started up from a thick bed of reeds and made me a sign which was unobserved by the others, as was evidently his intention.
FORTUNATE DISCOVERY OF A MOIST MUD-HOLE.

PROVIDENTIAL SUPPLY.
I hurried up and found him with his head buried in a small hole of moist mud, for I can call it nothing else.