We Were Glad Enough To Secure Him Again, And The Water He Carried.

The next morning we were under weigh very early, and, following the old guide Jimmy, we went in a

South-east direction towards the first watering place that he knew, and which he said was called Chimpering. Many times before we reached this place the old fellow seemed very uncertain of his whereabouts, but by dodging about amongst the sandhills - the country being all rolling hummocks of red sand covered with dense scrubs and the universal spinifex - he managed to drop down upon it, after we had travelled about thirty miles from Youldeh. Chimpering consisted of a small acacia, or as we say a mulga, hollow, the mulga being the Acacia aneura; here a few bare red granite rocks were exposed to view. In a crevice between two of these Jimmy showed us a small orifice, which we found, upon baling out, to contain only three buckets of a filthy black fluid that old Jimmy declared was water. We annoyed him fearfully by pretending we did not know what it was. Poor old chap, he couldn't explain how angry he was, but he managed to stammer out, "White fellow - fool; pony drink 'em." The day was excessively hot, the thermometer stood at 106 degrees in the shade. The horses or ponies, as universally called at Fowler's Bay, drank the dirty water with avidity. It was early in the day when we arrived, and so soon as the water was taken, we pushed on towards the next place, Pylebung.

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