Of Course The Shears Were Not Returned, And At Night The Captive Or His Friend Used Them To Prise Open A Split Link Of The Chain Which Secured Him, And Away He Went As Free As A Bird In The Air.

I had Mr. Burgess's and Mr. Wittenoom's company to Cheangwa, and on arrival there my party had everything ready for a start.

We arranged for a final meeting with our kind friends at a spring called Pia, at the far northern end of Mr. Wittenoom's run. A great number of natives were assembled round Cheangwa: this is always the case at all frontier stations, in the Australian squatting bush. Some of the girls and young women were exceedingly pretty; the men were not so attractive, but the boys were good-looking youngsters. The young ladies were exceedingly talkative; they called the camels emus, or, as they pronounced it, immu. Several of these girls declared their intention of coming with us. There were Annies, and Lizzies, Lauras, and Kittys, and Judys, by the dozen. One interesting young person in undress uniform came up to me and said, "This is Judy, I am Judy; you Melbourne walk? me Melbourne walk too!" I said, "Oh, all right, my dear;" to this she replied, "Then you'll have to gib me dress." I gave her a shirt.

When we left Cheangwa a number of the natives persisted in following us, and though we outpaced them in travelling, they stopping to hunt on the way, they found their way to the camp after us. By some of the men and boys we were led to a water-hole of some length, called Cooerminga, about eleven miles nearly north from Cheangwa. As the day was very warm, we and the natives all indulged promiscuously in the luxury of swimming, diving, and splashing about in all directions. It might be said that: -

"By yon mossy boulder, see an ebony shoulder, Dazzling the beholder, rises o'er the blue; But a moment's thinking, sends the Naiad sinking, With a modest shrinking, from the gazer's view."

The day after we crossed the dry channel of what is called the River Sandford, and at two or three miles beyond it, we were shown another water called Moodilah, six miles from our last night's encampment. We were so hampered with the girls that we did not travel very rapidly over this part of the continent. Moodilah lay a little to the east of north from Cooerminga; Barloweerie Peak bore north 37 degrees west from camp, the latitude of which was 27 degrees 11' 8". On Saturday, the 8th of April, we went nearly north to Pia Spring, where the following day we met for the last time, Messrs. Burgess and Wittenoom. We had some bottles of champagne cooling in canvas water-buckets, and we had an excellent lunch. The girls still remained with us, and if we liked we might have stayed to "sit with these dark Orianas in groves by the murmuring sea."

On Sunday, the 9th of April, we all remained in peace, if not happiness, at Pia Spring; its position is in latitude 27 degrees 7' and longitude 116 degrees 30'.

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