Interior of New Holland. 
205 
from the camp, passing a tributary which joined it about three 
miles coming from the hills 1 have mentioned, and forming what 
has since been called the Depdt Creek. We found an abundance 
of grass hereabouts ; but beyond the immediate bed of the creek, 
barren stony plains extended. Leaving Mount Poole to our left, 
we halted the first night on the creek we were tracing, without 
water; the numerous water-holes Mr. Poole and Mr. Browne 
found in it not a fortnight before, having disappeared, and not a 
sign of moisture now remaining. Crossing some loose plains 
northwards, on the following morning, we arrived on the banks 
of another creek running to the southward of east, through a gap 
in a long range in that direction. The bed of the creek we had 
just left was of pure sand and gravel; that of the second creek 
was of clay, and in it we found plenty of water, but it was thick 
and discolored. We saw many pigeons on the plains on either 
side of this creek, and in journeying down it, stopped for the 
night at a little lagoon not far from its left bank. We had now 
gained the extreme point to which Mr. Poole and Mr. Browne 
had gone on their recent excursion. From the lagoon, Mr. Poole 
turned back for the camp, whilst we proceeded to the north, for 
a remarkable group of hills I was anxious both to ascend and 
to examine. Crossing the creek, we traversed barren stony un¬ 
dulating ground, gradually rising as we advanced. Again crossing 
a small tributary creek, in which there was also water; we rode 
over plains, on which there was an abundance of grass in tufts, 
and in the midst of which there were bare patches of soil where 
gypsum was in the progress of formation, the hills themselves 
were perfectly bare of timber, they projected into the plain at an 
angle of 35°, like head lands, and were altogether different from 
the ranges we had hitherto seen. 
From the summits of one of these points we could mark the 
course of the creek, along the banks of which we had approached 
the hills far to the E.S.E. To the eastward low ranges, similar 
to those on which we were, were visible; but from that point 
round to the north-west horizon was hid from the view by high 
ground. There were two peaks to the N.N.W., to which I 
proposed going, and from which I hoped to gain a view of the 
