333 
Interior of New Holland. 
misfortune overtook me. The reader will perhaps imagine better 
than I can the feelings under which this conversation took place, 
and if either Mr. Browne or myself betrayed any weakness they 
will make a generous allowance for it. Mr. Browne continued 
firm, in eonsequence of which I abandoned my intention, but 
directed Mr. Stuart, Morgan, and Mark, to hold themselves in 
readiness to leave the camp on the 6th of the month, with ten 
weeks’ provisions. Before we parted I arranged with Mr. Browne 
that if he should be forced to retreat from his present position 
from any necessity, an event which I foresaw, he should bury a 
bottle with a letter in it for me under a marked tree, and that 
before he finally broke up the camp to dig a hole in the centre of 
the creek to retain the water, if it should fail, as long as possible. 
Having given my poor horses six days of rest I again left the 
camp, and, for the third time turning into the tracks I had twice 
trodden before, made the best of my way to the first creek, to 
which I have already alluded. There being no water in any other 
direction I was obliged to that course, from which I intended to 
run due north into the interior, for it had struck me that the 
Stony Desert was the channel in which the waters of the interior 
collected, whether to run off or gradually to evaporate, it was 
impossible to say. It appeared to me that it was the bed of a 
former current, which, with irresistible force, had broken through 
the sand dunes and created the broad gap its surface occupied. 
In such case it was obvious, that if I tried still more to the east¬ 
ward, I should necessarily come upon it again. Moreover, being 
nearer the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, than any other 
part of the coast, I thought that, by pursuing a northerly course 
I should ascertain whether any hills existed between me and the 
great northern inlet. I state these particulars that the reader may 
be aware of the objects I had in view in this my second attempt 
to cross the desert interior. 
I was glad, on my arrival at the first creek, to find that there 
was yet an abundance of water in it. I looked upon it as the 
point to which I could fall back in case of necessity, and I left it 
in confidence and hope. We traversed plains of great extent, 
through a country just such as Mr. Browne had described. The 
