How then could an European expect to find food in deserts through which the savage wandered in vain?
There is no doubt of the fate that would have overtaken any one of the party who might have strayed away, and I was happy to find that Norman's narrow escape had made a due impression on the minds of his comrades.
SANDY PLAINS; LEAVE THE CREEK.
We passed some considerable plains, lying to the eastward of the creek, on parts of which the grass, though growing in tufts, was of luxuriant growth.

They were, however, more generally covered with salsola and rhagodia, and totally destitute of other vegetation, the soil upon them being a red sandy loam.

The paths across the plains, which varied in breadth from three to eight miles, were numerous; but they had not been recently trodden.

The creek continued to have a thick brush of casuarina and acacia near it, to the westward of which there was a rising open forest track; the timber upon it being chiefly box, cypress, and the acacia longifolia.

It was most probably connected with New Year's Range, those elevations being about thirty miles distant.