We Enjoyed A Most Luxurious Bath In The Rocky Basins.

We moved the camp to softer ground, where there was a well-grassed flat a mile and a half away.

To the east was a high and solitary mound, mentioned in my first journal as ranges to the east of Mount Olga, and apparently lying north and south; this is called Ayers' Rock; I shall have to speak of it farther on. To the west-south-west were some pointed ridges, with the long extent of the Mann Ranges lying east and west, far beyond them to the south.

The appearance of Mount Olga from this camp is truly wonderful; it displayed to our astonished eyes rounded minarets, giant cupolas, and monstrous domes. There they have stood as huge memorials of the ancient times of earth, for ages, countless eons of ages, since its creation first had birth. The rocks are smoothed with the attrition of the alchemy of years. Time, the old, the dim magician, has ineffectually laboured here, although with all the powers of ocean at his command; Mount Olga has remained as it was born; doubtless by the agency of submarine commotion of former days, beyond even the epoch of far-back history's phantom dream. From this encampment I can only liken Mount Olga to several enormous rotund or rather elliptical shapes of rouge mange, which had been placed beside one another by some extraordinary freak or convulsion of Nature. I found two other running brooks, one on the west and one on the north side. My first encampment was on the south. The position of this extraordinary feature is in latitude 25 degrees 20' and longitude 130 degrees 57'.

Leaving the mountain, we next traversed a region of sandy soil, rising into sandhills, with patches of level ground between. There were casuarinas and triodia in profusion - two different kinds of vegetation which appear to thoroughly enjoy one another's company. We went to the hills south south-westerly, and had a waterless camp in the porcupine, triodia, spinifex, Festuca irritans, and everything-else-abominable, grass; 95 degrees in shade. At about thirty-two miles from Mount Olga we came to the foot of the hills, and I found a small supply of water by digging; but at daylight next morning there was not sufficient for half the horses, so I rode away to look for more; this I found in a channel coming from a sugar-loaf or high-peaked hill. It was a terribly rough and rocky place, and it was too late to get the animals up to the ledges where the water was, and they had to wait till next day.

From here I decided to steer for a notch in the Mann Range, nearly south-west. The country consisted chiefly of sandhills, with casuarina and flats with triodia. We could get no water by night. I collected a great quantity of various plants and flowers along all the way I had come in fact, but just about Mount Olga I fancied I had discovered several new species.

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