The Night Here Was Cold, The Mercury At Daylight Being Down To 24 Degrees, And There Was Ice On The Water Or Tea Left In The Pannikins Or Billies Overnight.

This place was so charming that I could not tear myself away.

Mr. Tietkens and I walked to and climbed up a high mount, about three miles north-easterly from camp; it was of some elevation. We ascended by a gorge having eucalyptus and callitris pines halfway up. We found water running from one little basin to another, and high up, near the summit, was a bare rock over which water was gushing. To us, as we climbed towards it, it appeared like a monstrous diamond hung in mid-air, flashing back the rays of the morning sun. I called this Mount Oberon, after Shakespeare's King of the Fairies. The view from its summit was limited. To the west the hills of this chain still run on; to the east I could see Mount Ferdinand. The valley in which the camp and water was situate lay in all its loveliness at our feet, and the little natural trough in its centre, now reduced in size by distance, looked like a silver thread, or, indeed, it appeared more as though Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, had for a moment laid her magic silver wand upon the grass, and was reposing in the sunlight among the herbage and the flowers. The day was lovely, the sky serene and clear, and a gentle zephyr-like breeze merely agitated the atmosphere. As we sat gazing over this delightful scene, and having found also so many lovely spots in this chain of mountains, I was tempted to believe I had discovered regions which might eventually support, not only flocks and herds, but which would become the centres of population also, each individual amongst whom would envy me us being the first discoverer of the scenes it so delighted them to view. For here were: -

"Long dreamy lawns, and birds on happy wings Keeping their homes in never-rifled bowers; Cool fountains filling with their murmuring The sunny silence 'twixt the charming hours."

In the afternoon we returned to the camp, and again and again wondered at the singular manner in which the water existed here. Five hundred yards above or below there is no sign of water, but in that intermediate space a stream gushes out of the ground, fills a splendid little trough, and gushes into the ground again: emblematic indeed of the ephemeral existence of humanity - we rise out of the dust, flash for a brief moment in the light of life, and in another we are gone. We planted seeds here; I called it Titania's Spring, the watercourse in which it exists I called Moffatt's* Creek.

The night was totally different from the former, the mercury not falling below 66 degrees. The horses upon being brought up to the camp this morning on foot, displayed such abominable liveliness and flashness, that there was no catching them. One colt, Blackie, who was the leader of the riot, I just managed at length to catch, and then we had to drive the others several times round the camp at a gallop, before their exuberance had in a measure subsided. It seemed, indeed, as if the fairies had been bewitching them during the night. It was late when we left the lovely spot. A pretty valley running north-west, with a creek in it, was our next road; our track wound about through the most splendidly grassed valleys, mostly having a trend westerly. At twelve miles we saw the gum timber of a watercourse, apparently debouching through a glen. Of course there was water, and a channel filled with reeds, down which the current ran in never-failing streams. This spot was another of those charming gems which exist in such numbers in this chain. This was another of those "secret nooks in a pleasant land, by the frolic fairies planned." I called the place Glen Watson*. From a hill near I discovered that this chain had now become broken, and though it continues to run on still farther west, it seemed as though it would shortly end. The Mount Olga of my former expedition was now in view, and bore north 17 degrees west, a considerable distance away. I was most anxious to visit it. On my former journey I had made many endeavours to reach it, but was prevented; now, however, I hoped no obstacle would occur, and I shall travel towards it to-morrow. There was more than a mile of running water here, the horses were up to their eyes in the most luxuriant vegetation, and our encampment was again in a most romantic spot. Ah! why should regions so lovely be traversed so soon? This chain of mountains is called the Musgrave Range. A heavy dew fell last night, produced, I imagine, by the moisture in the glen, and not by extraneous atmospheric causes, as we have had none for some nights previously.

CHAPTER 2.3. FROM 10TH SEPTEMBER TO 30TH SEPTEMBER, 1873.

Leave for Mount Olga. Change of scene. Desert oak-trees. The Mann range. Fraser's Wells. Mount Olga's foot. Gosse's expedition. Marvellous mountain. Running water. Black and gold butterflies. Rocky bath. Ayers' Rock. Appearance of Mount Olga. Irritans camp. Sugar-loaf Hill. Collect plants. Peaches. A patch of better country. A new creek and glen. Heat and cold. A pellucid pond. Zoe's Glen. Christy Bagot's Creek. Stewed ducks. A lake. Hector's Springs and Pass. Lake Wilson. Stevenson's Creek. Milk thistles. Beautiful amphitheatre. A carpet of verdure. Green swamp. Smell of camels. How I found Livingstone. Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit. Cotton and salt bush flats. The Champ de Mars. Sheets of water. Peculiar tree. Pleasing scene. Harriet's Springs. Water in grass. Ants and burrs. Mount Aloysius. Across the border. The Bell Rock.

We left this pretty glen with its purling stream and reedy bed, and entered very shortly upon an entirely different country, covered with porcupine grass.

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