We crossed many creeks and rivers, sometimes wading and at others time swimming.
Gradually we left the hilly country behind, and after about five or six weeks' tramping got into an extraordinary desert of red sand, which gave off a dust from our very tracks that nearly suffocated us.

Each water- hole we came across now began to contain less and less of the precious liquid, and our daily _menu_ grew more and more scanty, until at length we were compelled to live on practically nothing but a few roots and stray rats.

Still we plodded on, finally striking a terrible spinifex country, which was inconceivably worse than anything we had hitherto encountered.

In order to make our way through this spinifex (the terrible "porcupine grass" of the Australian interior), we were bound to follow the tracks made by kangaroos or natives, otherwise we should have made no progress whatever.

These tracks at times wandered about zigzag fashion, and led us considerable distances out of our course, but, all the same, we dare not leave them.