to the east of Mount Gambier. South Australian pastoralists had worked their way east from the coast and there were disputes when they met pastoralists from the Wimmera country pushing their way westwards with flocks of sheep. There was uncertainty as to which Government should grant pastoral licenses to the squatters and which had legal control. In November 1846 the Colonial Secretary's Office directed surveyor Henry Wade to proceed from Sydney to the disputed territory to define a "Boundary for Police Purposes". By March 1847 Wade had got his party of seven and equipment at the mouth of the Glenelg River. He was joined by assistant surveyor Edward White who had been appointed by the South Australian government to act as an observer on its behalf. After much deprivation and hardship due to drought and reluctance by his men to continue with poor work conditions, Wade was still 155 miles (250 km) from the Murray River after nine months of swamp, sand dunes and broken equipment. The expedition collapsed at the 36th parallel of latitude. On 16 December 1847 the South Australian Government published a proclamation that the "line as marked on the ground" by Wade should be "deemed and construed" to be the eastern boundary of South Australia. In March, 1849 New South Wales issued a proclamation in similar terms. Wade died in 1854. As the survey was only partially completed the two colonies were in agreement that surveyor White should complete Wade's line to the Murray River as soon as possible. This was doubly urgent as the colony of Victoria was to be proclaimed within twelve months further complicating legal and later political matters. In August 1849 the extension from Wade's line was begun. White and his party of five were similarly troubled by the severe nature of the Big Desert mallee country: where there was little water in 1847 there was none two years later. Within two weeks mutinous men had deserted him and two of his three horses collapsed from being without water for four days. White led the other until it also lay down, he himself was also on the verge of collapse but he managed to bleed the horse and drink half a pint of the blood. Lost, he did not know how far from the Murray River he was but he managed to stagger on for about two miles (3.2 km) to find