26 
LAKE TORRENS. 
that elevation, there was one feature in the land- 
scape, which still gave me hope that something might 
be done in that direction, and had in fact been my 
principal inducement to select a line nearly north 
from Spencer's Gulf, for our route on the present 
expedition ; this feature was the continuation, and the 
undiminished elevation of the chain of hills forming 
Flinders range, running nearly parallel with the 
course of Lake Torrens, and when last seen by me 
stretching far to the northward and eastward in a 
broken and picturesque outline. 
It was to this chain of hills that I now looked 
forward as the stepping-stone to the interior. In its 
continuation were centered all my hopes of success, 
because in its recesses alone could I hope to obtain 
water and grass for my party. The desert region 
I had seen around its base, gave no hope of either, 
and though the basin of Lake Torrens appeared to 
be increasing so much in extent to the northward, 
I had seen nothing to indicate its terminating 
within any practicable distance, in a deep or navi- 
gable water. True the whole of the drainage from 
Flinders range, as far as was yet known, emptied 
into its basin, but such was the arid and sandy na- 
ture of the region through which it passed, that a 
great part of the moisture was absorbed, whilst the 
low level of the basin of the lake, apparently the 
same as that of the sea itself, forbade even the most 
distant hope of the water being fresh, should any be 
found in its bed. 
