It struck me, therefore, that it would be a much more eligible line for the expedition to run up the Darling to lat.

32 degrees 26 minutes, and then to trace the Williorara upwards into the hills, with the chance of meeting the opposite fall of waters, rather than to entangle myself and waste my first energies amidst scrub and salt lagoons.

As I understood my instructions and the wishes of the Secretary of State, I was to keep on the 138th meridian (that of Mount Arden) until I should reach the supposed chain of mountains, the existence of which it was the object of Lord Stanley to ascertain, or until I was turned aside from it by some impracticable object.

Lake Torrens being due north of Mount Arden would, if I had taken that line, have been direct in my way, and I should have had to turn either its eastern or its western flank.

The Surveyor-General, Captain Frome, had tried the former, but although he went considerably to the eastward into the low and desert interior before he turned northwards, he still found himself entangled in that sandy basin, so that it appeared to me that I should do little more than clear it on the course I proposed to take.
As the reader, however, will learn in the perusal of these pages, I was wholly disappointed in the character of the Williorara.