Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/114

 BLANCHEWATER TO THE DEPOT, LAKE BUCHANAN.

expedition now quits the furthest of the pastoral stations, Mr. Baker's, called Blanchewater. The travellers do not immediately enter upon uninhabited wilds, for after two days' march and twenty-seven miles of progress, they are only at one of Mr. Baker's out-stations, thus giving us some idea of the extent occasionally necessary to an Australian squattage in parts where the country is poor, and subject for most of the summer to those excessive droughts that altogether suspend the growth of pasture. From Blanchewater, for about fifty miles to Pando or Lake Hope, the country was so sterile and water so scarce, that all the animals suffered more or less, and ten days were spent at the lake in recruiting.