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.
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