58 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 
rather saline from the nature of the soil upon which 
it lay, the horses, however, drank it readily, and 
we put some in a small keg for ourselves. The only 
vegetation to be seen consisted of a few small stunted 
trees and shrubs, and even these as we approached 
the vicinity of the lake disappeared altogether, and 
gave place to Salsolaceous plants, the country being 
open and barren in the extreme. 
I found Lake Torrens completely girded by a 
steep sandy ridge, exactly like the sandy ridges 
bounding the sea shore, no rocks or stones were 
visible any where, but many saline coasts peeped 
out in the outer ridge, and upon descending westerly 
to its basin, I found the dry bed of the lake coated 
completely over with a crust of salt, forming one 
unbroken sheet of pure white, and glittering bril- 
liantly in the sun. On stepping upon this I found 
that it yielded to the foot, and that below the sur- 
face the bed of the lake consisted of a soft mud, and 
the further we advanced to the westward the more 
boggy it got, so that at last it became quite impossible 
to proceed, and I was obliged to return to the outer 
margin of the lake without ascertaining whether 
there was water on the surface of its bed further 
west or not. 
The extraordinary deception caused by mirage 
and refraction, arising from the state of the atmo- 
sphere in these regions, makes it almost impossible 
to believe the evidence of one’s own eyesight ; but 
as far as I could judge under these circumstances, it 
