Whether They Had Left The Body To Become A Skeleton,
Before Making A Bundle Of The Bones (A Practice Common To Some Australian
Tribes), Or Whether It Is Their Usual Custom To Leave The Dead Where They
Die, I Do Not Know.
I know, however, that this body was subsequently
moved, not by the blacks, but by those snarling scavengers, the dingoes.
This finding of a corpse at the mouth of the only soak we had seen was
hardly encouraging; but still there was a large extent of rocks that we
had not yet visited. Shortly before sunset, as I stood on the summit of
the highest rock, I was astonished by the sight of some horses grazing in
a little valley beneath. I could hardly believe that I saw aright; it
seemed incredible that horsemen should have reached this drought-begirt
spot. Little time was wasted in idle speculation, and the appearance of
our camels soon proved the horses to be flesh and blood, and not mere
phantoms of the brain, unless indeed phantoms can snort and plunge!
The owner of the horses soon made his appearance, and, with reluctant
resignation, showed us the soak from which his horses were watered. He and
his mates, he said, were sinking for water in a likely spot some half-mile
away; in the meantime they used the soak, though it was evident it would
not last much longer. We must have water for our camels, and must use the
soak, I said, until their thirst was somewhat relieved, then in our turn
we would dig for soaks round the rocks.
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