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 Firmly Believe This Chip Out
Of The Rock Has Been Formed By Successive Generations Of The Native
Population, For Ages Placing Their Mouths To And Drinking At This
Spot; But Whether In Connection With Any Sacrificial Ceremonies Or No,
Deponent Knoweth, And Sayeth Not.
The poet Spenser, more than three
hundred years ago, must have visited this spot - at least, in
imagination, for see how he describes it:
-
"And fast beside there trickled softly down,
A gentle stream, whose murmuring waves did play
Amongst the broken stones, and made a sowne,
To lull him fast asleep, who by it lay:
The weary traveller wandering that way
Therein might often quench his thirsty heat,
And then by it, his weary limbs display;
(Whiles creeping slumber made him to forget
His former pain), and wash away his toilsome sweet."
(ILLUSTRATION: GILL'S PINNACLE.)
There is very poor grazing ground round this water. It is only
valuable as a wayside inn, or out. I called the singular feature which
points out this water to the wanderer in these western wilds, Gill's
Pinnacle, after my brother-in-law, and the water, Gordon's Springs,
after his son. In the middle of the night, rumblings of thunder were
heard, and lightnings illuminated the glen. When we were starting on
the following morning, some aborigines made their appearance, and
vented their delight at our appearance here by the emission of several
howls, yells, gesticulations, and indecent actions, and, to hem us in
with a circle of fire, to frighten us out, or roast us to death, they
set fire to the triodia all round.
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