There was an extraordinary mount a little to the west of north from us; it looked something like a church; it was over twenty miles away: I called it Mount Peculiar.

Leaving the creek on our left, to run itself out into some lonely flat or dismal swamp, known only to the wretched inhabitants of this desolate region--over which there seems to brood an unutterable stillness and a dread repose--we struck into sandhill country, rather open, covered with the triodia or spinifex, and timbered with the casuarina or black oak trees.

We had scarcely gone two miles when our old thunderstorm came upon us--it had evidently missed us at first, and had now come to look for us--and it rained heavily.

The country was so sandy and porous that no water remained on the surface.

We travelled on and the storm travelled with us--the ground sucking up every drop that fell.