Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
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He Said He Would Take Me To Several Waters
Between Here And Youldeh, By A More Northerly Route Than He Had
Previously Shown; He Said That Water Existed At Several Places Which
He Enumerated On His Fingers; Their Names Were Taloreh, Edoldeh,
Cudyeh, Yanderby, Mobing, Bring, Poothraba, Pondoothy, And Youldeh.
I
was very glad to hear of all these places, and hoped we should find
they were situated in a more hospitable country than that through
which we had formerly come.
On the 25th Mr. Young shot an emu, and we
had fried steaks, which we all relished. Saleh being a good Mussulman,
was only just (if) in time to run up and cut the bird's throat before
it died, otherwise his religious scruples would have prevented him
from eating any of it. All the meat he did eat, which was smoked beef,
had been killed in the orthodox Mohammedan style, either by himself or
one of his co-religionists at Beltana. It was cured and carried on
purpose. None of the natives I had formerly seen, or any others, made
their appearance, and the party were disappointed by not seeing the
charming young Polly, my description of whom had greatly raised their
curiosity.
(ILLUSTRATION: WYNBRING ROCK.)
On the 26th of June we departed from the pretty little oasis of
Wynbring, leaving its isolated and water-giving rock, in the silence
and solitude of its enveloping scrubs, abandoning it once again, to
the occupation of primeval man, a fertile little gem in a desolate
waste, where the footsteps of the white man had never been seen until
I came, where the wild emu, and the wilder black man, continually
return to its life-sustaining rock, where the aboriginal inhabitants
will again and again indulge in the wild revelries of the midnight
corroborree dance, and where, in an existence totally distinct from
ours of civilisation, men and women live and love, and eat and drink,
and sleep and die. But the passions are the same in all phases of the
life of the human family, the two great master motives, of love and
hunger, being the mainspring of all the actions of mankind.
Wynbring was now behind us, and Jimmy once more our guide,
philosopher, and friend. He seemed much gratified at again becoming an
important member of the expedition, and he and Tommy, both upon the
same riding-camel, led the way for us, through the scrubs, in the
direction of about west-north-west. In seven or eight miles we came to
a little opening in the scrub, where Jimmy showed us some bare flat
rocks, wherein was a nearly circular hole brimful of water. It was,
however, nearly full also of the debris of ages, as a stick could be
poked into mud or dirt for several feet below the water, and it was
impossible to say what depth it really was; but at the best it could
not contain more than 200 or 300 gallons. This was Taloreh.
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