They accordingly made for it, over more promising country.

They reached the hill which Sturt called Oxley's Tableland, but from its summit he saw nothing but a stretch of monotonous plain, with no sign of the long-sought river.

That night they camped at a small swamp, and the next morning turned back, Sturt agreeing with Oxley, but without as much reason, that "the space I traversed is unlikely to become the haunt of civilised man." Hume did not return until the day after Sturt's arrival.

He reported that the Castlereagh River must have suddenly turned to the north below where Oxley crossed it, for he had been unable to find it.

He had gone westward, but had seen nothing except far-stretching plains.