Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
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I Rode Over To Another
Overhanging Ledge And Found It Formed A Verandah Wide Enough To Make A
Large Cave; Upon The Walls Of This, The Natives Had Painted Strange
Devices Of Snakes, Principally In White; The Children Had Scratched
Imperfect Shapes Of Hands With Bits Of Charcoal.
The whole length of
this cave had frequently been a large encampment.
Looking about with
some hopes of finding the place where these children of the wilderness
obtained water, I espied about a hundred yards away, and on the
opposite side of the little glen or valley, a very peculiar looking
crevice between two huge blocks of sandstone, and apparently not more
than a yard wide. I rode over to this spot, and to my great delight
found a most excellent little rock tarn, of nearly an oblong shape,
containing a most welcome and opportune supply of the fluid I was so
anxious to discover. Some green slime rested on a portion of the
surface, but the rest was all clear and pure water. My horse must have
thought me mad, and any one who had seen me might have thought I had
suddenly espied some basilisk, or cockatrice, or mailed saurian; for
just as the horse was preparing to dip his nose in the water he so
greatly wanted, I turned him away and made him gallop off after his
and my companions, who were slowly passing away from this liquid
prize. When I hailed, and overtook them, they could scarcely believe
that our wants were to be so soon and so agreeably relieved.
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