The day was one of the warmest we had yet experienced.
The creek now seemed not to come from the range, but, thinking water might be got there so soon after rains, we travelled up to its foot.
The country was sandy, and bedecked with triodia, but near the range I saw for the first time on this expedition a quantity of the Australian grass-tree (Xanthorrhoea) dotting the landscape.

They were of all heights, from two to twenty feet.

The country round the base of this range is not devoid of a certain kind of wild beauty.

A few blood-wood or red gum-trees, with their brilliant green foliage, enlivened the scene.
A small creek, lined with gum-trees, issued from an opening or glen, up which I rode in search of water, but was perfectly unsuccessful, as not a drop of the life-sustaining fluid was to be found.

Upon returning to impart this discouraging intelligence to my companions, I stumbled upon a small quantity in a depression, on a broad, almost square boulder of rock that lay in the bed of the creek.