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I shall send up and enlarge the trench, so that we may be enabled to water the whole lot. At 6.40 a.m. started back for the camp. At 1.45 p.m. halted to give the horses a little rest. At 2.30 p.m. changed to 184 degrees, and at four miles reached the table hills, but there was no creek, only a number of clay-pans, all quite dry, with stunted gum-trees growing round them.
North of the lake are numerous large clay-pans which had not been flooded, and the lakes could evidently hold more water, and had done so in time past, so that it is pretty clear that the lakes are large enough for ordinary flood waters, and, with the outlying clay-pans, can accommodate the waters of an extraordinary flood.
We had great trouble in cleaning off from their backs the clay with which they were smeared, having rolled in some shallow clay-pans near the lakes. It was most necessary to scrape it off somehow, as otherwise sore backs would have resulted; and, indeed, Stoddy's sore back started in this way by the friction of the saddle and the caked mud.
He camped with us that night. He informed me his men obtained water at some clay-pans, called Coondambo, near the edge of Lake Gairdner, another large salt depression similar to Lake Torrens, and that by following his horses' tracks they would lead, first to a well where he had just succeeded in obtaining water at a depth of eighty-five feet, and thence, in seven miles farther, to the Coondambo clay-pans.
After bidding good-bye to the crew of the Adur, and to the two natives we have had with us from the Thomas River, who were now at the end of their country and were afraid to come any further with us, we left Israelite Bay en route for Eucla, and steered in a northerly direction for about fifteen miles over salt marshes and clay-pans, with dense thickets intervening, destitute of grass.
These were piled up into heaps laid in two parallel rows, and at intervals between the heaps would be a large boulder; evidently this was the work of aboriginals, but what meaning to attach to it we could not think. The beginning of our journey promised well for water, for we were again favoured by a local thunderstorm which, in clay-pans and swamps, left a plentiful supply. Mr.
Proceeded to the south-east, having camped on my former course at two clay-pans, where I think there is a chance of water, if a shower has fallen there. Started on our former course and arrived at the clay-pans without seeing a drop of water; neither is there any in them. Camped; the horses being very tired, from coming through so many sand hills. Tuesday, 7th August, Clay-pans in Sand Hills.
The next morning, following some horse tracks about south-west, they took us to the Coondambo clay-pans; the water was yellow and very thick, but there was plenty of it for all our purposes, though I imagined it would not last Mr. Moseley and his men very long.
Rough low granite hills all along our route, but very little feed. Passed many clay-pans with water in them. The country was sandy and stony, and is thickly wooded. Mount Woodroffe bears north 208 degrees east magnetic from our camp, and a remarkable granite hill bore north, which I named Mount Elizabeth. Latitude 26 degrees 13 minutes south. Marked a tree F 89, being 89th camp from Geraldton.
Tiring at length of prospecting reefs, blows, and alluvial with no better result than an occasional pin's-head of gold, we turned our faces to the north, passing again the herd of cattle wallowing in the swamps and pans of rain water. Clay-pans usually occur in the neighbourhood of salt lakes, and are merely shallow depressions with smooth clay bottoms.
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