As Soon As I Brought Them In We Followed And Stopped
Some Of The Natives, And They Returned With Us To Camp And Presently
Decoyed Others Who Were Passing.
There was nothing remarkable about these savages except that they were
tall and well-made and fairly friendly.
One had the skin disease from
which we had noticed others suffering. An old man, and a young, rather
handsome, buck came with us and went ahead as guides. Their camp had
been, as is the rule, on the top of a sand-ridge - chosen, no doubt, as a
position suitable for watching the approach of others. A four-mile stage
brought us to a nice little oasis - a small area of grass, surrounded by
ti-trees, enclosed by two sand-ridges. In the centre of the grass three
good soaks, in black, sandy soil, yielded sufficient for all our needs at
the expenditure of but little labour. The horses appreciated the change,
and unless we had given them water in instalments would have assuredly
burst themselves. They drank in all sixteen gallons apiece! Seeing that
they had never been in anything but good country all their lives, and
that now we had suddenly come out of it into the howling waste, they
showed satisfactory endurance, having been eighty hours with only six
gallons of water each during that time. What English thoroughbred could
have done this?
The next day Breaden and I rode up to Mount Elphinstone, which we found
to be formed of three great rocky shoulders of sandstone capped with
quartzite, almost bare, and stony on the top, with sheer faces one
hundred feet high on the West side and a gradual slope to the East, where
high sand-ridges run right up to the foot.
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