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 Could Not
Sufficiently Admire And Praise The Wonderful Powers Of These
Extraordinary, And To Me Entirely New Animals.
During the time we had
been travelling the weather had been very hot and oppressive, the
thermometer usually rising
To 104 degrees in the shade when we rested
for an hour in the middle of the day, but that was not the hottest
time, from 2.40 to 3 p.m. being the culminating period. The country we
had traversed was a most frightful desert, yet day after day our noble
camels kept moving slowly but surely on, with undiminished powers,
having carried water for their unfortunate companions the horses, and
seeing them drop one by one exhausted and dying of thirst; still they
marched contentedly on, carrying us by turns, and all the remaining
gear of the dead horses, and finally brought us to water at last. We
had yet over eighty miles to travel to reach the Finniss, and had we
not found water I am sure the three human beings of the party could
never have got there. The walking in turns over this dreadful region
made us suffer all the more, and it was dangerous at any time to allow
old Jimmy to put his baking lips to a water-bag, for he could have
drank a couple of gallons at any time with the greatest ease. For some
miles before we found the water the country had become of much better
quality, the sandhills being lower and well grassed, with clay flats
between.
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