The stillness of death reigned around us, no living creature was to be heard; nothing visible inhabited that dreary desert but the ant, even the fly shunned it, and yet its yielding surface was marked all over with the tracks of native dogs.
We started shortly after noon, and passed a pointed sand-hill, from whence we could not only see the stony range but also the main range of hills.

The little peak on which Mr.Browne and I took bearings on our last journey bore 150 degrees, the pass through which we had descended into the plains 170 degrees, when I turned however to take bearings of the stony range it had disappeared, having been elevated by refraction above its true position.

It bore about N.W.

1/2 W., distant from eight to nine miles.

It was again some time after sunset before we halted, on a small flat that might contain two or at the most three acres.