At the
furthest point we reached, 195 miles from the depot; it was upon the
shore of another salt lake, no water of any kind was to be procured.
The only horizon to be seen was about fifteen miles away, and was
simply the rim of an undulation in the dreary scrubs covered with the
usual timber--that is to say, a mixture of the Eucalyptus dumosa or
mallee, casuarinas or black oaks, a few Grevilleas, hakea bushes, with
leguminous trees and shrubs, such as mulga, and a kind of harsh-,
silver wattle, looking bush. On the latter order of these trees and
plants the camels find their sustenance. Two stunted specimens of the
native orange-tree or capparis were seen where I had left the two
casks. From my furthest point west, in latitude 29 degrees 15' and
longitude 128 degrees 3' 30", I returned to the dam and found that
even during my short absence of only three and a half days the
diminution of the volume of water in it was amazing, and I was
perfectly staggered at the decrease, which was at the rate of more
than an inch per day. The dimensions of this singular little dam were
very small: the depth was its most satisfactory feature. It was, as
all native watering places are, funnel-shaped, and to the bottom of
the funnel I could poke a stick about three feet, but a good deal of
that depth was mud; the surface was not more than eight feet long, by
three feet wide, its shape was elliptical; it was not full when we
first saw it, having shrunk at least three feet from its highest
water-mark.
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