For the next twelve miles we travelled down a gentle descent leading to a very deep valley, and late in the evening reached some dried up swamps where we made an ineffectual search for water; we however saw here some parakeets, and I was lucky enough to kill one which was about the size of a thrush; several of the men also got shots at these little birds, but without success.

As the day had been intensely hot and we had tasted no water since morning we suffered a great deal from want of it, but were at length compelled by darkness to lie down to rest without finding any.
DRY BED OF THE SMITH RIVER.
April 16.
We had not travelled above two miles this morning in an east-south-east direction when I found that we had reached the bottom of the valley into which we had yesterday evening commenced our descent.

In this valley lay the dried up bed of a considerable stream, which I have named the Smith after my unfortunate friend.

Its direction was from north-east to south.
LONG AND UTTER DESTITUTION OF FOOD AND WATER.

SUFFERINGS FROM THIRST.
As we were now suffering a good deal from thirst we made a search in both directions along the bed, but although there were many pools (some of them being twelve or fourteen feet deep) we could not find the slightest indication of water having stood in them for a considerable time: in the bottom of one of the deepest of these pools was a native well, dug to the depth of about seven feet, but even at this distance below the surface we could see no signs whatever of water.