This was written when I was two and a half years old.
The writer little
thought that an infant was growing up who would have no more sense than
to revisit this ghastly region; nor as far as I remember was the infant
thinking much about sand! Dear me! how easy it was to get a drink in
those days - merely by yelling for it - but the strongest lungs in the world
cannot dig out a native well.
CHAPTER V
STANSMORE RANGE TO LAKE MACDONALD
Shaping our course from the lake (Lake White) towards the highest point
in the range, which I named Stansmore Range after poor Charlie, we had
the novel and pleasant experience of travelling with, instead of across,
the ridges - if only we could have turned the country round at right
angles, or changed the North point of the compass, how nice it would have
been! As it was, South we must go to get home, and take the ridges as
they came; our Westerly course was only temporary. For twenty-seven
miles we steered W.b.S., keeping along the trough of two ridges the
whole time, seeing nothing on either hand but a high bank of sand covered
with the usual vegetation. The trough was flat at the bottom, and about
150 yards wide. For ten miles we travelled between the same two parallel
ridges, then in front the butt-end of another appeared, as the trough
widened out. Deviating slightly to the South from our former course, we
were again between two ridges, one of which was the same that we had
followed along before. Then, again, in a few miles another ridge would
start, and altering our course again, this time a little to the North,
continued our march between two fresh ridges, and so on. Thus it will be
seen that the ridges, though apparently parallel, are not accurately so,
and that one may be continuous for more than ten miles or so, when it
ends and another takes its place.
On our march our captives cleverly caught a spinifex rat and a snake (one
of the very few that we saw); they greedily devoured both, and were much
pleased when Godfrey refused to partake of a piece of half-raw snake which
they politely offered him. We discovered that they had a great liking for
our beef-water - that is, the water in which our salt beef had been
cooked - and made no bones about swallowing a couple of gallons of this
brine-like soup. It had one good effect, for it made them most anxious to
take us to water the next morning! The hills we found to be of the usual
character, barren sandstone, from which numerous rocky creeks have torn
their way through the sand. Following up a little glen, terribly rough
and steep for the camels, we came at length to a fine pool, hemmed in by
almost sheer cliffs sixty feet high. Climbing to the top of these, I
could see that the same rough country extended for a considerable
distance to the westward, and that further travel up the glen was
impossible; so we retraced our steps down the creek, on the banks of
which we found grass and bushes in profusion, and poison plant. This
drove us away into the sandhills beyond all harm, and, unfortunately,
beyond all feed as well, nor had we time before night set in to cut and
carry any bushes for the camels, as we might otherwise have done.
That night our camp was in lat. 21 degrees 25 minutes, long. 128 degrees
20 minutes. The following morning I ascended the highest point in the
range, whilst Breaden and Warri took our animals for a final drink up the
glen. The lake was just visible, lit up by the rising sun, but I doubt if
during the day it could be seen. From the range numerous creeks, nine in
all, run Eastwards, one of which, I think, reaches the lake, as
with field-glass I could follow a serpentine line of gum trees. The rest
run out a few miles from their head on to grass-flats timbered with large
gums. The hills are of sandstone in layers, dipping to the West; these
seem to have been forced up into three-cornered blocks, the faces of
which have weathered away on the East side, forming steep slopes of
stones and boulders. Between the hills low ridges of sandstone running
North and South outcrop only a few feet above the surface, and are
separated by strips of white sand timbered with stunted gum trees. The
whole scene has a most strange and desolate appearance.
Returned to camp, I liberated the two guides, for I did not wish to
inconvenience them by taking them beyond their own country. They were
quite unwilling to go, and indeed waited until we were ready to start,
and were most anxious for us to go to the East again. "Gilli nappa,"
they assured us, was to be found, making their meaning clear by tracing
in the sand a winding line to represent a creek; and when at the end I
drew a lake, they were highly pleased, and grunted and snapped their
fingers in approval. However, when I showed them that we were going due
South their faces assumed so dismal an expression, and so vehement were
their exhortations to go in the other direction, that we concluded we had
no picnic before us. Had they had any intentions of coming further our
change of course decided them, and they made tracks for the glen, bearing
with them many rich gifts. An empty meat tin and a few nails does not
sound a very great reward for their enforced services, and yet they would
have been far less pleased with a handful of sovereigns; they could put
these to no use whatever, whereas the tins will make small "coolimans,"
and the nails, set in spinifex-gum on the end of a waddy, will find their
way into a neighbour's head.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 109 of 125
Words from 110245 to 111264
of 127189
