346 Captain Sturt’s Expedition into the 
hills if I followed it up, more especially as we could see what we 
fancied to be their outer line in the direction from which it came. 
Arrived at this creek, on our return, I turned up it, but found 
nothing but disappointment. At nine miles we passed a gap j n 
what we had taken to be the outer line of hills. The ground we 
travelled over was herbless, and pure sand with sharp pointed 
rocks buried in it. The bed of the creek was perfectly level an j 
gravelly, and the waters evidently rushed with great violence 
through the pass at times. A few trees were growing under shelter 
of the hills, and amongst them a shrub I had previously found to 
the eastward of the Darling, with a long yellow tassel. We found 
the hills to be accumulations of sand and stone, and on ascending 
one about four hundred feet recognised the fanciful form of the 
broken ranges we had seen—thus distorted by refraction from the 
place where we first struck the creek. A desolate valley and a dry 
water-course were before me to the north, and beyond them a 
succession of the same sandy hills as that on which I stood. I 
therefore felt it impossible to persevere, and returning to the creek 
reached the point from which I started on the 9th. 
It may appear to many of my readers that this creek might have 
existed still farther to the eastward than the point to which I went 
that is to lat. 27° 56', and long. 142°, or nearly so. It ma y 
certainly exist beyond the grassy plains, but I do not think that 
it does. Those plains were sufficiently extensive to give birth to 
such a creek, when we consider the heavy character of the torrents 
that fall in those regions. I do not think that our knowledge of 
the country to the eastward, favors the idea that it has a long 
course, but I will not assert the contrary. I describe the features 
of the country as I saw them, and give the best opinion my poor 
judgment can form of them; but, with regard to this creek, which 
certainly was a principal discovery, I would observe that I do not 
fancy that it can be connected with any of the rivers recently 
discovered to the eastward of it. The largest of those rivers was 
abandoned in lat. 24° 14' and long. 144° 35', 256 geographical 
miles from the most eastern extremity of Cooper’s Creek. That 
river was there running to the north, Cooper's Creek being the 
distance I have mentioned to the S.S.W. of it, had a westerly 
