268 
Captain Sturt's Expedition into the 
plain, almost as berbless as the one we had crossed. It presented 
the appearance of a boundless ploughed piece of land, on which 
waters had settled and subsided. With a clear and unbroken 
horizon before us we continued to wander over this singular 
region, which was intersected by little channels for draining off 
its waters, the fall apparently being to the N. E. A short time 
before sunset some hills, elevated from their true position by 
refraction, appeared above the N.W. horizon, the bearing of which 
we took. Shortly afterwards we had a small clump of trees at a 
great distance before us, and finding, on coming up to them, that 
they were growing on the bank of a small creek, we halted for the 
night, and short-tied our horses up to them. In the morning the 
hills we had seen again rose above the horizon, but gradually sank 
as the sun rose. Now, however, they bore north of us, and as 
there was no visible termination to the plain in any other direction 
I made for them. We could not judge from the aspect of these 
hills, whether they were sand-hills or of more solid material. 
Anxiously we gazed at them through the telescope, but could 
not make out their character. I had hoped that we had passed 
the worst of the interior, and that on the northern side of the 
deserts we should have a change of country — but we were 
doomed to disappointment. On reaching the hills we found that 
they were sand ridges, similar to those we had already encoun¬ 
tered. Here on this side of the desert, and with an open interval 
of more than 50 miles between them, they preserved the same 
line of bearings, shooting up into the interior beyond the range 
of vision, and succeeding each other, both to the eastward and 
westward, in endless succession. We had already struggled over 
them for nearly 300 miles—that is to say, from 31° to the 
27° of latitude; but here again they rose before us in terrible 
array. Keeping at the base of one of them on the former bear¬ 
ing of 340°, we ultimately crossed it, and made for a little smoke 
that was rising in the open box-tree forest before us; but although 
we moved silently we found the natives had fled. About sunset 
we struck the dry channel of a large creek, the fall of which it 
was utterly impossible to determine. It was clothed with couch- 
grass, and I momentarily expected to find water; but in tracing 
