We Rode Through The Flames, And Away.

CHAPTER 2.9.

FROM 12TH MARCH TO 19TH APRIL, 1874.

The Rebecca. The Petermann range. Extraordinary place. The Docker. Livingstone's Pass. A park. Wall-like hills. The Ruined Rampart. Pink, green, and blue water. Park-like scenery. The Hull. A high cone. Sugar-loaf Peak. Pretty hills and grassy valleys. Name several features. A wild Parthenius. Surprise a tribe of natives. An attack. Mount Olga in view. Overtaken by the enemy. Appearance of Mount Olga. Breakfast interrupted. Escape by flight. The depot. Small circles of stone. Springs. Mark a tree. Slaughter Terrible Billy. A smoke signal. Trouble in collecting the horses. A friendly conference. Leave Sladen Water. Fort McKellar. Revisit the Circus. The west end of the range. Name two springs.

The country towards the other ranges eastwards appeared poor and scrubby. We went first to a hill a good deal south of east, and crossed the dry bed of a broad, sandy, and stony creek running north. I called it the Rebecca. From it we went to a low saddle between two hills, all the while having a continuous range to the north; this was the extension beyond the pinnacle of the wall-like crescent. A conspicuous mount in this northern line I called Mount Sargood*. From this saddle we saw a range of hills which ran up from the south-west, and, extending now eastwards, formed a valley nearly in front of us. I called this new feature the Petermann Range. In it, a peculiar notch existed, to which we went. This new range was exceedingly wall-like and very steep, having a serrated ridge all along; I found the notch to be only a rough gully, and not a pass. We continued along the range, and at four miles farther we came to a pass where two high hills stood apart, and allowed an extremely large creek - that is to say, an extremely wide one - whose trend was northerly, to come through. Climbing one of the hills, I saw that the creek came from the south-west, and was here joined by another from the south-east. There was an exceedingly fine and pretty piece of park-like scenery, enclosed almost entirely by hills, the Petermann Range forming a kind of huge outside wall, which enclosed a mass of lower hills to the south, from which these two creeks find their sources. This was a very extraordinary place; I searched in vain in the pass for water, and could not help wondering where such a watercourse could go to. The creek I called the Docker*. The pass and park just within it I called Livingstone Pass and Learmonth* Park. Just outside the pass, northerly, was a high hill I called Mount Skene*.

(ILLUSTRATION: VIEW ON THE PETERMANN RANGE.)

Finding no water in the pass, we went to the more easterly of the two creeks; it was very small compared with the Docker. It was now dusk, and we had to camp without water.

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