Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/216

 character. The principal lakes, some of which, from their extent and depth, seemed to be permanent, were fringed with luxuriant grass, and fed by fine deep, broad creeks, whose cool and shaded waters afforded delightful bathing for the party.

And yet the precarious climate of all this lake region, variegated as it now is by well supplied lakes and creeks, and in many parts waving with long grass, holds us in suspense as to its practical value for colonization. The great question is the permanency of the water—or at least of some portion of it here and there, even although that portion be reduced, during unusually dry seasons, merely to the deeper corner of some lake, or an occasional water-hole in the bed of a creek. The live-stock can readily put up with the dried-up tinder-looking vegetation. Indeed this natural hay is greatly relished by them, and during very hot dry weather, when the grass-growing quite ceases, a very small supply may suffice for the animals. But water is indispensable for daily wants, and cannot conveniently be very far distant. We have already alluded to the rapidity of evaporation over the open area of this lake district. A very striking instance occurs further on in the case of the very promising Lake Hodgkinson itself, "a splendid sheet of water," as Mr. McKinlay calls it, but which, during a brief absent interval, on one occasion, of but twelve