On the 13th,
they arrived at the banks of a magnificent channel with grassy banks,
fine trees and abundant water; this was the now well-known Cooper's
Creek, one of the most important rivers of the interior, its tributaries
draining the southern slopes of the dividing watershed in the north.
Sturt on reaching this unexpected discovery was uncertain whether to
follow its course to the eastward, or persevere in his original intention
of pushing to the north. A thunder storm falling at the time made him
adhere to his original course, and defer the examination of the new river
until his return. In seven days after leaving Cooper's Creek, he had the
negative satisfaction, as he expected, of gazing over the dreary waste of
the stony desert, unchanged and forbidding as ever. They crossed it, and
were again turned back by sand hill and salt plain, and forced to retrace
their steps to Cooper's Creek. This creek Sturt followed upward for many
days, but finding it did not take him in the direction he desired to go,
and moreover, the large broad channel that they first came to, became
divided into many small ones, which ran through flooded plains, making
the travelling most tiring on their exhausted horses; he reluctantly
turned back.
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