to Baxter’s range. 
205 
much difficulty, and had we been but a few days 
later, we should have failed altogether, for though 
travelling for a great part of the distance under very 
high rocky ranges, we never found a drop of per- 
manent fresh- water nor a single spring near them. 
There are no watercourses, and no timber; all is barren 
rocky and naked in the extreme. The waters that 
collected after rains, lodged in the basins of small 
lakes ; but such was the nature of the soil that 
these were invariably salt. 
It was through this dreary region I had left my 
overseer to take his division of the party when we 
separated at Baxter’s range ; but I confided the task 
to him with confidence. Rain had at that time 
fallen very abundantly ; he had already been over 
the road with me before, and knew all the places 
where water or grass was likely to be found ; and 
our former dray tracks of 1839, which were still 
distinctly visible, would be a sufficient guide to pre- 
vent his getting off the line of route. The skill, 
judgment, and success with which the overseer 
conducted the task assigned to him, fully justified 
the confidence I reposed in him ; and upon my 
rejoining the party at Streaky Bay, after an absence 
of seven weeks, I was much gratified to find that 
neither the men, animals, or equipment, were in the 
least degree the worse for their passage through the 
desert. 
