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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Plenty Water Here!" Reechy, Who Had Not
Had Half Enough At The First Place, Would Not Go Past This One.
I walked down and saw a large well with a good body of water in it,
evidently permanently supplied by the drainage of the mass of bare
rocks in its vicinity.
I was greatly pleased at Tommy's discovery, and
after giving Reechy a thorough good drink, off he went like a rocket
after the party. I wandered about, but found no other water-place; and
then, thinking of the days that were long enough ago, I sat in the
shade of an umbrageous acacia bush. Soon I heard the voices of the
angels, native black and fallen angels, and their smokes came
gradually nearer. I thought they must have seen me on the top of the
rocks, and desired to make my further acquaintance. The advancing
party, however, turned out to be only two women coming for water to
the well. They had vessels, usually called coolamins - these are small
wooden troughs, though sometimes made of bark, and are shaped like
miniature canoes - for carrying water to their encampment. When they
came near enough to see what I was, they ran away a short distance,
then stopped, turned round, and looked at me. Of course I gave a
gentle bow, as to something quite uncommon; a man may bend his lowest
in a desert to a woman. I also made signs for them to come to the
well, but they dropped their bark coolamins and walked smartly off.
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