VIEW FROM MOUNT HOPELESS. 127 
Crossing many little stony ridges, and passing the 
channel of several watercourses, I discovered a new 
and still more disheartening feature in the country, 
the existence of brine springs. Hitherto we had 
found brackish and occasionally salt water in some 
of the watercourses, but by tracing them up among 
the hills, we had usually found the quality to 
improve as we advanced, but now the springs were 
out in the open plains, and the water poisoned at its 
very source. 
Occasionally round the springs were a few coarse 
rushes, but the soil in other respects was quite bare, 
destitute of vegetation, and thickly coated over 
with salt, presenting the most miserable and melan- 
choly aspect imaginable. We were now in nearly 
the same latitude as that in which Captain Sturt 
had discovered brine springs in the bed of the 
Darling, and which had rendered even that river 
so perfectly salt that his party could not make use 
of it. 
September c 2 . — At thirty-five miles we reached 
the little elevation I had been steering for, and as- 
cended Mount Hopeless, and cheerless and hopeless 
indeed was the prospect before us. As I had anti- 
cipated, the view was both extensive and decisive. 
We were now past all the ranges; and for three 
quarters of the compass, extending from south, 
round by east and north, to west, the horizon was 
one unbroken level, except where the fragments of 
table land, or the ridge of the lake, interrupted its 
uniformity. 
