In Ten Minutes The Tea Was Ready; Some Splendid Fat Corned Beef, And Mustard, And Well-Cooked Damper Were Put Before Us, And Oh, Didn't We Eat!

Then pots of jams and tins of butter were put on our plates whole, and were scooped up with spoons, till human organisms could do no more.

We were actually full - full to repletion. Then we had some grog. Next we had a sleep, and then at sundown another exquisite meal. It made our new friends shudder to look at our remaining stock of Hollow Back, when we emptied it out on a tarpaulin and told them that was what we had been living on. However, I made them a present of it for their dogs. Most of the teamsters knew Gibson, and expressed their sorrow at his mishap; some of them also knew he was married.

The natives up the line had been very aggressive at the telegraph stations, while we were absent, and all our firearms, etc., were eagerly purchased, also several horses and gear. Mr. Frost fell in love with Banks at a glance, and, though I tried not to part with the horse, he was so anxious to buy him that I could not well refuse, although I had intended to keep him and West Australian. Trew, one of the best horses, had been staked early in the journey and his foot was blemished, otherwise he was a splendid horse. All the best horses were wanted - Diaway, Blackie, etc., but I kept W.A., Widge, and one or two more of the best, as we still had several hundreds of miles to go.

When we parted from our friends we only had a few horses left. We reached the Charlotte Waters about twelve o'clock on July 13th, having been nearly a year absent from civilisation. Our welcome here by my friend and namesake, Mr. Christopher Giles, was of the warmest, and he clothed and fed us like a young father. He had also recovered and kept my old horse Cocky. The whole of the establishment there, testified their pleasure at our return. On our arrival at the Peake our reception by Mr. and Mrs. Blood at the telegraph station was most gratifying. Mr. John Bagot also supplied us with many necessaries at his cattle-station. The mail contractor had a light buggy here, and I obtained a seat and was driven by him as far as the Blinman Copper Mine, via Beltana, where I heard that my black boy Dick had died of influenza at a camp of the semi-civilised natives near a hill called by Eyre, Mount Northwest. From the Blinman I took the regular mail coach and train nearly 300 miles to Adelaide. Mr. Tietkens and Jimmy came behind and sold the remaining horses at the Blinman, where they also took the coach and joined me in Adelaide a week later.

I have now but a few concluding remarks to make; for my second expedition is at an end, and those of my readers who have followed my wanderings are perhaps as glad to arrive at the end as I was. I may truly say that for nearly twelve months I had been the well-wrought slave not only of the sextant, the compass, and the pen, but of the shovel, the axe, and the needle also. There had been a continual strain on brain and muscle. The leader of such an expedition as this could not stand by and simply give orders for certain work to be performed; he must join in it, and with the good example of heart and hand assist and cheer those with whom he was associated. To my friend and second, Mr. Tietkens, I was under great obligations, for I found him, as my readers will have seen, always ready and ever willing for the most arduous and disagreeable of our many undertakings. My expedition had been unsuccessful in its main object, and my most sanguine hopes had been destroyed. I knew at starting a great deal was expected from me, and if I had not fulfilled the hopes of my friends, I could only console them by the fact that I could not even fulfil my own. But if it is conceded that I had done my devoir as an Australian explorer, then I am satisfied. Nothing succeeds like success, but it is not in the power of man - however he may deserve - to command it. Many trials and many bitter hours must the explorer of such a region experience. The life of a man is to be held at no more than a moment's purchase. The slightest accident or want of judgment may instantly become the cause of death while engaged in such an enterprise, and it may be truly said we passed through a baptism worse indeed than that of fire - the baptism of no water. That I should ever again take the field is more than I would undertake to say: -

"Yet the charmed spell Which summons man to high discovery, Is ever vocal in the outward world; But those alone may hear it who have hearts, Responsive to its tone."

I may add that I had discovered a line of waters to Sladen Water and Fort McKellar, and that at a distance of 150 miles from there lies the Alfred and Marie Range. At what price that range was sighted I need not now repeat. It is highly probable that water exists there also.

It was, however, evident to me that it is only with camels there is much likelihood of a successful and permanently valuable issue in case of any future attempt. There was only one gentleman in the whole of Australia who could supply the means of its accomplishment; and to him the country at large must in future be, as it is at present, indebted for ultimate discoveries. Of course that gentleman was the Honourable Sir Thomas Elder. To my kind friend Baron Mueller I am greatly indebted, and I trust, though unsuccessful, I bring no discredit upon him for his exertions on my behalf.

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