A Few Days In Camp Are By No Means Idle Ones, For Numerous Are The Jobs To Be Done - Washing And Mending Clothes, Patching Up Boots And Hats, Hair Cutting, Diary Writing, Plotting Our Course, Arranging Photograph Plates (The Majority Of Which Were, Alas!

Spoilt by the heat), mending a camera cracked by the sun, making hobble-straps, mending and stuffing saddles, rearranging

Packs cleaning firearms, and other like occupations. The heat was extreme; too great for my little thermometer which registered up to 140 (degrees) F., and intensified by hot winds and "Willy-Willies" (sometimes of great violence), which greatly endangered our camp. Godfrey excelled himself in the cooking department, and our usual diet of "tinned dog" was agreeably varied by small pigeons, which came in numbers to drink - pretty little slate-grey birds with tufts on their heads, common enough in Australia. Of these we shot over fifty, and, as well, a few of the larger bronzewing pigeons. The tufted birds come to water just after daylight and just before sundown, and so are more easily shot than the bronzewing. Throughout the day, galahs, wee-jugglers, parakeets, diamond-sparrows, and an occasional hawk or crow, came to the spring, evidently a favourite resort. Curiously enough, but few native camps were to be seen, nor is this the first time that I have noticed that the best waters are least used. The Australian aboriginal is not usually credited with much thought for the morrow. These desert people, however, have some provident habits, for first the small native wells are used, and only when these are exhausted are the more permanent waters resorted to. As an instance of their powers of following a "spoor," it may be mentioned that on several occasions our captive suddenly darted off at a tangent with eyes to ground, and then started digging his heel in the sand to find where a lizard or iguana was that he had tracked to his hole. Warri, amongst his other accomplishments, was most useful as a retriever of any wounded pigeon; he would hunt about until he spotted a fresh track, and before long had captured the bird. Any one who has noticed the number of hen-tracks in a poultry yard will appreciate this delicate performance. Warri, I am sure, would have been invaluable to Sherlock Holmes.

Pleasant as our camp was we could not stay too long, for we still had a considerable tract of unknown country before us. As the result of numerous observations I make the position of Helena Spring to be lat. 21 degrees, 20 minutes 30 seconds South, and (by dead reckoning) long. 126 degrees 20 minutes East.

From the native I extracted the following words, which I consider reliable:

English. Aboriginal.

Eagle Hawk Gunderu Gum tree Waaldi Sand Nuah Spinifex Godadyuda, * Fire or Smoke Warru * Water Gabbi * Dog Pappa

[* The same as used by natives at Empress Spring.]

CHAPTER XIII

FROM HELENA SPRING TO THE SOUTHESK TABLELANDS.

On October 11th we reluctantly left the "Diamond of the Desert" behind us, travelling in a N.E. by N. direction over the interminable sand-ridges, crossing a greater extent of burnt country than we had yet seen, and finally camping on the top of a high ridge so as to catch any breeze that the night might favour us with.

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