all seemed favourable, but after the most careful search not a single spring or well could be discovered, and all hope of farther progress that season being at an end, the party contented themselves with naming their discovery the "Hampton Plains," in honour of the Governor, and turned back to await a kindlier winter.
The second expedition of which we witnessed the departure was composed of three gentlemen as leaders, and a mixed party of pensioners and convicts to act as road-makers and well-sinkers. The intention of the Government in sending out so strong a body of men was to open a fairly practicable track, over which sheep and cattle might travel in safety, leading to the country which had been discovered on the previous occasion. Having reached this spot, and having marked out the road and planned the wells, the larger number of the convicts were to be left to finish the works, under supervision of the pensioners, whilst the leaders, with a much smaller party, should prosecute the search to the eastward, and also in a southern and northern direction.
Much curiosity had been excited by the promising character given of the Hampton Plains, and some persons were even so sanguine as to hope that they would prove the commencement of a line of country stretching away so far to the east and south as at length to join some portion of the territory of South Australia. The wish for such a communication with the sister colony was devoutly expressed by all the settlers, but the hope of really finding it had long since died out of most people's minds.
The mere starting of so large a party of riders and sumpter horses, increased also by the company of many
