I Was Much Pleased With Their Discovery, And On Tuesday, The 27th July, Having Nineteen Camels And Provisions For Eight Months, And A Perfect Equipment For Carrying Water, We Left Youldeh.

Richard Dorey, with his camels and black boy, went away to the south.

My caravan departed in a long single string to the north, and Youldeh and the place thereof knew us no more.

CHAPTER 4.2. FROM 27TH JULY TO 6TH OCTOBER, 1875.

Ooldabinna depot. Tietkens and Young go north. I go west. A salt expanse. Dense scrubs. Deposit two casks of water. Silence and solitude. Native footmarks. A hollow. Fine vegetation. A native dam. Anxiety. A great plain. A dry march. Return to the depot. Rain. My officers' report. Depart for the west. Method of travelling. Kill a camel. Reach the dam. Death or victory. Leave the dam. The hazard of the die. Five days of scrubs. Enter a plain. A terrible journey. Saleh prays for a rock-hole. A dry basin at 242 miles. Watering camels in the desert. Seventeen days without water. Saved. Tommy finds a supply. The Great Victoria Desert. The Queen's Spring. Farther still west.

On leaving Youldeh I had the choice of first visiting the native well my two officers had found at the flat tops, eighty-two miles, or the further one at Ooldabinna, which was ninety-two. I decided to go straight for the latter. The weather was cool, and the camels could easily go that distance without water. Their loads were heavy, averaging now 550 pounds all round. The country all the way consisted first, of very high and heavy sandhills, with mallee scrubs and thick spinifex, with occasional grassy flats between, but at one place we actually crossed a space of nearly ten miles of open, good grassy limestone country. We travelled very slowly over this region. There was a little plant, something like mignonette, which the camels were extremely fond of; we met it first on the grassy ground just mentioned, and when we had travelled from fifteen to eighteen miles and found some of it we camped. It took us five days and a half to reach Ooldabinna, and by the time we arrived there I had travelled 1010 miles from Beltana on all courses. I found Ooldabinna to consist of a small, pretty, open space amongst the scrubs; it was just dotted over with mulga-trees, and was no doubt a very favourite resort of the native owners.

On the flat there was a place where for untold ages the natives have obtained their water supplies. There were several wells, but my experience immediately informed me that they were simply rockholes filled with soil from the periodical rain-waters over the little flat, the holes lying in the lowest ground, and I perceived that the water supply was very limited; fortunately, however, there was sufficient for our immediate requirements. The camels were not apparently thirsty when we arrived, but drank more the following day; this completely emptied all the wells, and our supply then depended upon the soakage, which was of such a small volume that I became greatly disenchanted with my new home.

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