CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
133 
are a number of islands and lofty ranges as far as the eye can 
reach. What is all this ? Are we to be prosperous"? I hope 
so ; and I am sure you do. To-morrow we start for the ranges, 
and then for the waters, — the strange waters on which boat never 
swam, and over which flag never floated. But both shall ere 
long. We have the heart of the interior laid open to us, and shall be 
off with a flowing sheet in a few days. Poole says that the sea was 
a deep blue, and that in the midst of it there was a conical island 
of great height. When will you hear from me again V* 
From this communication, Captain Sturt appears 
to be sanguine of having realized the long hoped 
for sea, and at last of having found a key to the 
centre of the continent. Most sincerely do 1 hope 
that this may be the case, and that the next ac- 
counts may more than confirm such satisfactory 
intelligence. 
My own impressions were always decidedly 
opposed to the idea of an inland sea, nor have I 
changed them in the least, now that circumstances 
amounting almost to proof, seem to favour that 
opinion. 
Entertaining, as I do, the highest respect for the 
opinion of one so every way capable of forming a 
correct judgment as Captain Sturt, it is with con- 
siderable diffidence that I advance any conjectures 
in opposition to his, and especially so, as I may be 
thought presumptuous in doing so in the face of 
the accounts received. Until these accounts, how- 
ever, are further confirmed, the question still re- 
mains as it was ; and it may perhaps not be out of 
