Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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In The Course
Of Our Journey This Morning, We Met With Many Holes In The Sheets Of
Limestone, Which Occasionally
Coated the surface of the ground; in these
holes the natives appeared to procure an abundance of water after rains,
But it was so long since any had fallen, that all were dry and empty now.
In one deep hole only, did we find the least trace of moisture; this had
at the bottom of it, perhaps a couple of wine glasses full of mud and
water, and was most carefully blocked up from the birds with huge stones:
it had evidently been visited by natives, not an hour before we arrived
at it, but I suspect they were as much disappointed as we were, upon
rolling away all the stones to find nothing in it.
After our scanty meal, we again moved onwards, but the road became so
scrubby and rocky, or so sandy and hilly, that we could make no progress
at all by night, and at eight miles from where we dined, we were
compelled to halt, after a day's journey of twenty-nine miles; but
without a blade even of withered grass for our horses, which was the more
grievous, because for the first time since we left the last water, a very
heavy dew fell, and would have enabled them to feed a little, had there
been grass. We had now traversed 138 miles of country from the last
water, and according to my estimate of the distance we had to go, ought
to be within a few miles of the termination of the cliffs of the Great
Bight.
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