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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I Named The Range Of
Which It Is The Highest Point, Carnarvon Range.
We returned again to the Gorge of Tarns, as Mr. Tietkens very tritely
remarked, sadder but wiser men.
Our position here is by no means
enviable, for although there is plenty of permanent water in this
range, it appears to be surrounded by such extensive deserts that
advance or retreat is equally difficult, as now I had no water in
tanks or otherwise between this and Fort Mueller, and not a horse
might ever reach that goal. I am again seated under the splashing
fountain that falls from the rocks above, sheltered by the sunless
caverns of this Gorge of Tarns, with a limpid liquid basin of the
purest water at my feet, sheltered from the heated atmosphere which
almost melts the rocks and sand of the country surrounding us - sitting
as I may well declare in the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,
but we cannot shut out from the mind the perils we have endured, the
perils we may yet have to endure. For the present our wants and those
of our gallant horses are supplied, but to the traveller in such a
wilderness, when he once turns his back upon a water, the
ever-recurring question presents itself, of when and where shall I
obtain more? The explorer is necessarily insatiable for water; no
quantity can satisfy him, for he requires it always and in every
place. Life for water he will at any moment give, for water cannot be
done without.
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