The Day Was Hot, The Thermometer Marked 105 Degrees.

There was not sufficient water here for the horses, and I decided, as we had not actually dug at our old camp, to return there and do so.

This we did, and obtained a sufficiency at last. We were enabled to keep the camp here for a few days, while Mr. Tietkens and I tried to find a more northerly route to the west. Leaving Gibson and Jimmy behind, we took three horses and steered away for the north. Our route on this trip led us into the most miserable country, dry ridges and spinifex, sandhills and scrubs, which rolled along in undulations of several miles apart. We could get no water, and camped after a day's journey of forty miles.

Though the day had been very hot, the night became suddenly cool. In the morning of the 28th of October, at five miles we arrived at a scrubby sand ridge, and obtained a most displeasing view of the country further north. The surface seemed more depressed, but entirely filled up with dense scrubs, with another ridge similar to the one we were on bounding the view; we reached it in about eight miles. The view we then got was precisely similar to that behind us, except that the next undulation that bounded the horizon was fifteen to eighteen miles away. We had now come fifty-one miles from the Shoeing Camp; there was no probability of getting water in such a region. To the west the horizon was bounded by what appeared a perfectly flat and level line running northwards. This flat line to the west seemed not more than twenty-five to thirty miles away; between us and it were a few low stony hills. Not liking the northern, I now decided to push over to the western horizon, which looked so flat. I have said there were some stony hills in that direction; we reached the first in twenty miles. The next was formed of nearly bare rock, where there were some old native gunyahs. Searching about we found another of those extraordinary basins, holes, or cups washed out of the solid rock by ancient ocean's force, ages before an all-seeing Providence placed His dusky children upon this scene, or even before the waters had sufficiently subsided to permit either animal or man to exist here. From this singular cup we obtained a sufficient supply of that fluid so terribly scarce in this region. We had to fill a canvas bucket with a pint pot to water our horses, and we outspanned for the remainder of the day at this exceedingly welcome spot. There were a few hundred acres of excellent grass land, and the horses did remarkably well during the night. The day had been very hot; the thermometer in the shade at this rock stood at 106 degrees.

This proved a most abominable camp; it swarmed with ants, and they kept biting us so continually, that we were in a state of perpetual motion nearly all the time we were there.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 143 of 394
Words from 73612 to 74127 of 204780