On being asked, he expressed his readiness to accompany us when there should be water, but said we should not have rain yet.

I must confess this old native raised my hopes, and made me again anxious for the moment when we should resume our labours, but when that time was to come God only knew.
It had been to no purpose that we had traversed the country in search for water.

None any longer remained on the parched surface of the stony desert, if I except what remained at the Depot, and the little in the creek to the eastward.

There were indeed the ravages of floods and the vestiges of inundations to be seen in the neighbourhood of every creek we had traced, and upon every plain we had crossed, but the element that had left such marks of its fury was no where to be found.
From this period I gave up all hope of success in any future effort I might make to escape from our dreary prison.

Day after day, and week after week passed over our heads, without any apparent likelihood of any change in the weather.