130 FURTHER ADVANCE HOPELESS. 
from Mount Hopeless, and Mount Serle points, 
nearly ninety miles apart ! The appearances from 
the ranges were similar ; the trend of all the water- 
courses was to the same basin, and undoubtedly 
that basin, if traced far enough, must be of nearly 
the same level on the eastern, as on the western side 
of the ranges. I had completely ascertained that 
Flinders range had terminated to the eastward, the 
north-east, and the north ; that there were no hills 
or elevations connected with it beyond, in any of 
these directions, and that the horizon every where 
was one low uninterrupted level. 
With such data, and under such circumstances, 
what other opinion could I possibly arrive at, than 
that the bed of Lake Torrens was nearly similar in 
its character, and equally impracticable in its eastern, 
as its western arm ; and that, considering the diffi- 
culties I had encountered, and the hazards I had 
subjected myself to, in ascertaining these points so 
minutely on the western side, I could not be justi- 
fied in renewing those risks to the eastward, where 
the nature and extent of the impediments were so 
self-evidently the same, and where there was not the 
slightest hope of any useful result being attained 
by it. 
I was now more than a hundred miles away from 
my party ; and having sent them orders to move back 
towards Mount Arden, I had no time to lose in fol- 
lowing them. With bitter feelings of disappointment 
I turned from the dreary and cheerless scene around 
