About ten days later the train entered Caroo Port, a vast desert, horribly desolate and forbidding.

It was dead level and lay like a sea asleep.
The heat was overpowering.

Before entering the desert, a large supply of water was laid in and the order of travel was changed so that they ran at night instead of in the day time.

This wilderness is about sixty miles wide and it took them five days to cross it.

Whenever a wind rose on this desert the mouth, eyes, ears and nose were filled with dust, making life miserable.