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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From A
Hill Just Above Where We Dined, I Sighted A Range To The North, And
Took It To Be Part Of The Mount Hale Range; Mount Hale Itself Lying
More Easterly, Was Hidden By Some Other Hills Just In Front.
After
dinner we proceeded through, or across, the third amphitheatre, the
range in front appearing thirty to forty miles away.
That night we
encamped in a thicket, having travelled only sixteen or seventeen
miles. In a few miles, on the following day, we came on to a line of
white or flood gum-trees, and thought there was a river or creek ahead
of us; but it proved only a grassy flat, with the gum-trees growing
promiscuously upon it. A profusion of the beautiful Sturt, or
desert-pea, or Clianthus Dampierii, grew upon this flat. A few low,
red granite hills to the north seemed to form the bank or edge of a
kind of valley, and before reaching them, we struck a salt
watercourse, in which our two satellites discovered, or probably knew
of before, a fresh waterhole in rock and sand in the channel of the
creek, with plenty of water in, where we encamped. The day was
exceedingly hot, and though near the end of the hot months, our
continued northerly progress made us painfully aware that we were
still in the region of "sere woodlands and sad wildernesses, where,
with fire, and fierce drought, on her tresses, insatiable summer
oppresses." Our latitude here was 26 degrees 14' 50".
Immediately upon arrival, our cowra man and his friend seemed aware of
the presence of other natives in the neighbourhood, and began to make
signal smokes to induce their countrymen to approach.
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