It is a
singular fact that during the whole day we had not seen a drop of water
or a blade of grass.
"To have stopped where we were would, therefore, have been impossible;
to have advanced would probably have been ruin. Had there been one
favourable circumstance to have encouraged me with the hope of success I
would have proceeded. Had we picked up a stone, as indicating our
approach to high land, I would have gone on; or had there been a break in
the country, or even a change in the vegetation; but we had left all
traces of the natives behind us, and this seemed a desert they never
entered--that not even a bird inhabited. I could not encourage a hope of
success, and therefore gave up the point, not from want of means, but a
conviction of the inutility of any further efforts. If there is any blame
to be attached to the measure it is I who am in fault; but none who had
not like me traversed the interior at such a season would believe the
state of the country over which I had wandered. During the short interval
I had been out, I had seen rivers cease to flow before me and sheets of
water disappear, and had it not been for a merciful Providence should,
ere reaching the Darling, have been overwhelmed by misfortune.
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