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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The Everard Range Being About Sixty Miles South
From The Musgrave Chain, And They Not Having Sighted It, I Can
Scarcely Think They Could Have Been Within 100 Miles Of The Musgrave,
As From High Sandhills That High Feature Should Be Visible At That
Distance.
When Alec Ross and I returned from the west the others had been back
some days, and were most anxious to hear how we had got on out west.
The usual anxiety at the camp was the question of water supply; I had
found so little where I had been, and the water here was failing
rapidly every day. Had it not been for last night's rain, we should be
in a great difficulty this morning. Now, however, we had got our
supply replenished by the light rain, and for the moment all was well;
but it did not follow that because it rained here it must also rain at
the little dam 160 miles away. Yet I decided to take the whole party
to it, and as, by the blessing of Providence, we now had sufficient
water for the purpose, to carry as much as we possibly could, so that
if no rain had fallen at the dam when we arrived there, we should give
the camels what water they carried and keep pushing on west, and trust
to fate, or fortune, or chance, or Providence, or whatever it might
be, that would bring us to water beyond. On the 24th August, having
filled up everything that could hold a drop of water, we departed from
this little isolated spot, having certainly 160 miles of desert
without water to traverse, and perhaps none to be found at the end.
Now, having everything ready, and watered our camels, we folded our
tents like the Arabs, and as silently stole away.
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