Nicholls And I Extended Our Rugs Upon The Ground And Lay Down, And Then We Discovered That Old Jimmy Had Left The Camp, And Thought He Had Given Us The Slip In The Dark.

We had been lying down some time when the old fellow returned, and in the most voluble and excited

Language told us he had found the water; it was, he said, "big one, watta, mucka, pickaninny;" and in his delight at his success he began to describe it, or try to do so, in the firelight, on the ground; he kept saying, "big one, watta - big one, watta - watta go that way, watta go this way, and watta go that way, and watta go this way," turning himself round and round, so that I thought it must be a lake or swamp he was trying to describe. However, we got the camels and horses resaddled and packed, and took them where old Jimmy led us. The moon had now risen above the high sandhills that surrounded us, and we soon emerged upon a piece of open ground where there was a large white clay-pan, or bare patch of white clay soil, glistening in the moon's rays, and upon this there appeared an astonishing object - something like the wall of an old house or a ruined chimney. On arriving, we saw that it was a circular wall or dam of clay, nearly five feet high, with a segment open to the south to admit and retain the rain-water that occasionally flows over the flat into this artificial receptacle.

In spite of old Jimmy's asseverations, there was only sufficient water to last one or two days, and what there was, was very thick and whitish-coloured. The six animals being excessively thirsty, the volume of the fluid gradually diminished in the moonlight before our eyes; the camels and horses' legs and noses were all pushing against one another while they drank.

This wall, or dam, constructed by the aboriginals, is the first piece of work of art or usefulness that I had ever seen in all my travels in Australia; and if I had only heard of it, I should seriously have reflected upon the credibility of my informant, because no attempts of skill, or ingenuity, on the part of Australian natives, applied to building, or the storage of water, have previously been met with, and I was very much astonished at beholding one now. This piece of work was two feet thick on the top of the wall, twenty yards in the length of its sweep, and at the bottom, where the water lodged, the embankment was nearly five feet thick. The clay of which this dam was composed had been dug out of the hole in which the water lay, with small native wooden shovels, and piled up to its present dimensions.

Immediately around this singular monument of native industry, there are a few hundred acres of very pretty country, beautifully grassed and ornamented with a few mulga (acacia) trees, standing picturesquely apart.

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