They had found the creek well populated with natives, and
the prospects of getting on were apparently better than they had ever met
with before, but both Sturt and his men were weak and ill, and his horses
thoroughly tired out, and also he was not sure of his retreat.
Following Cooper's Creek back, they found that the water had dried up so
rapidly that grave fears were entertained that Strzelecki's Creek, their
main reliance in going back to the depot, would be dry. Fortunately, they
were in time to find a little muddy fluid left, just enough to serve
them. Here they experienced a hot wind that forced them to camp the whole
day, although most anxious to get on.
"We had scarcely got there," writes Sturt, "when the wind, which had
been blowing all the morning hot from the north-east, increased to a
gale, and I shall never forget its withering effects. I sought shelter
behind a large gum tree, but the blasts of heat were so terrific, that I
wondered the very grass did not take fire. This really was nothing ideal;
everything, both animate and inanimate, gave way before it; the horses
stood with their backs to the wind, and their noses to the ground,
without the muscular strength to raise their heads; the birds were mute,
and the leaves of the tree under which we were sitting, fell like a snow
shower around us.
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