These Fellows Were The Best Of Friends With My Men And Myself; We Were Laughing And Joking And Generally Having A Good Time.

I amused them greatly by passing a stick through my nose; I had formerly gone through an excruciating operation for that purpose, and telling them I once had been a black fellow.

They spoke but little English, and it was mostly through a few words that Alec Ross knew, of the Peake, Macumba, or Alberga tribes that we could talk to each other at all. After this we got them map-making on the sand. They demonstrated that the Ferdinand, which we had left, and had still on our right or west of us, running south, swept round suddenly to the eastwards and now lay across the country in front of us; that in its further progress it ran into, and formed a lake, then continuing, it at last reached a big salt lake, probably Lake Eyre; they also said we should get water by digging in the sand in the morning, when we struck the Ferdinand channel again. Soon after we started and were proceeding on our course, south 26 degrees west, from the rock-water, the natives all fell back and we saw no more of them. In twenty miles we came to the creek, and turning down its channel eastwards we found the well of which they had told us. There was plenty of water in it, no doubt, but we did not require it.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 721 of 753
Words from 196352 to 196602 of 204780