June 23.--Our horses having rambled some distance back upon our
yesterday's tracks, it was late when they were recovered, and we did not
get away until eleven. After travelling a mile and a half, we crossed a
stream of most excellent water running over a bed of granite, in which
were some large deep pools with reeds growing around their margins. A
branch of this watercourse was crossed a little further on, but was quite
dry where we passed it.

Nine miles from our last night's camp a view of the "Rocky Islets" was
obtained from a hill, and set at due south. Immediately on descending
from the hill we crossed a salt chain of ponds in a bed of sandstone and
ironstone, and nine miles beyond this we came to another, also of salt
water; here we halted for the night as there was tolerable grass for the
horses, and we were fortunate enough to discover fresh water in a granite
rock.

In the course of the afternoon I obtained a view of a very distant hill
bearing from us W.8 degrees S. This I took to be the east Mount Barren of
Flinders; but it was still very far away, and the intervening country
looked barren and unpromising. During the day our route had still been
over the same character of country as before, with this exception, that
it was more stony and barren, with breccia or iron-stone grit covering
the surface. The streams were less frequently met with, and were of a
greatly inferior character, consisting now principally of only chains of
small stagnant ponds of salt water, destitute of grass, and without any
good soil in the hollows through which they took their course. Many of
these, and especially those we crossed in the latter part of the day,
were quite dry, and appeared to be nothing more than deep gutters washed
by heavy rains between the undulations of the country.