Then from the outside an attempt to massacre
was made; several whites were speared, some were killed on the spot,
others died soon afterwards, but the greatest wonder was that any at
all escaped.
The establishment at the Charlotte Waters stands on a large grassy and
pebbly plain, bounded on the north by a watercourse half a mile away.
The natives here have always been peaceful, and never displayed any
hostility to the whites. From this last station I made my way to
Chambers' Pillar, which was to be my actual starting-point for the
west.
BOOK 1.
CHAPTER 1.1. FROM 4TH TO 30TH AUGUST, 1872.
The party.
Port Augusta.
The road.
The Peake.
Stony plateau.
Telegraph station.
Natives formerly hostile.
A new member.
Leave the Peake.
Black boy deserts.
Reach the Charlotte Waters Station.
Natives' account of other natives.
Leave last outpost.
Reach the Finke.
A Government party.
A ride westward.
End of the stony plateau.
A sandhill region.
Chambers' Pillar.
The Moloch horridus.
Thermometer 18 degrees.
The Finke.
Johnstone's range.
A night alarm.
Beautiful trees.
Wild ducks.
A tributary.
High dark hill.
Country rises in altitude.
Very high sandhills.
Quicksands.
New ranges.
A brush ford.
New pigeon.
Pointed hill.
A clay pan.
Christopher's Pinnacle.
Chandler's Range.
Another new range.
Sounds of running water.
First natives seen.
Name of the river.
A Central Australian warrior.
Natives burning the country.
Name a new creek.
Ascend a mountain.
Vivid green.
Discover a glen and more mountains.
Hot winds, smoke and ashes.
The personnel of my first expedition into the interior consisted in
the first instance of myself, Mr. Carmichael, and a young black boy. I
intended to engage the services of another white man at the furthest
outpost that I could secure one. From Port Augusta I despatched the
bulk of my stores by a team to the Peake, and made a leisurely
progress up the overland road via Beltana, the Finniss and Strangways
Springs stations. Our stores reached the Peake station before us. This
station was originally called Mount Margaret, but subsequently removed
to the mound-springs near the south bank of the Peake Creek; it was a
cattle station formed by Mr. Phillip Levi of Adelaide. The character
of the country is an open stony plateau, upon which lines of hills or
ranges rise; it is intersected by numerous watercourses, all trending
to Lake Eyre, and was an excellent cattle run. The South Australian
Government erected the telegraph station in the immediate vicinity of
the cattle station. When the cattle station was first formed in 1862
the natives were very numerous and very hostile, but at the time of my
visit, ten years later, they were comparatively civilised.
