The Result Of Our Interview Was, That I Determined To Send All The Party Back To Fowler's Bay, Except One White Man And Old Jimmy, Also All The Horses Except Three, And To Start With This Small Party And The Camels To The Eastward On The Following Day.

I selected Peter Nicholls to accompany me.

I found the boiling-point of water at the camp was 211 degrees making its altitude above the sea 509 feet. The sandhills were about 100 feet high on the average.

The two camels and the calf, were sent to me by Sir Thomas Elder, from Adelaide, while I was at Fowler's Bay, by an Afghan named Saleh Mahomet, who returned to, and met me at, Beltana, by the ordinary way of travellers. There was only a riding-saddle for the cow, the bull having come bare-backed; I therefore had to invent a pack- or baggage-saddle for him, and I venture to assert that 999,999 people out of every million would rather be excused the task. In this work I was ably seconded by Mr. Richards, who did most of the sewing and pad-making, but Mr. Armstrong, one of the owners and manager of the Fowler's Bay Station, though he supplied me in profusion with every other requisite, would not let me have the size of iron I wished, and I had to take what I could get, he thinking it the right size; and unfortunately that which I got for the saddle-trees was not stout enough, and, although in other respects the saddle was a brilliant success, though made upon a totally different principle from that of an Afghan's saddle, when the animal was loaded, the weakness of the iron made it continually widen, and in consequence the iron pressed down on the much-enduring creature's body and hurt him severely.

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