Only a few acacia bushes now indicated the
flow of the water over the grassy mulga flats, which wound about so
much around sandhills in the scrub, that I left the creek, and pushed
on now for the South Australian Telegraph Line.
I will now give a rapid account of what I said was a narrow escape
from death at those rock-holes we had just left. I may say in passing,
that what I have recorded as my travels and explorations in Australia
in these volumes, are probably not half of what I have really
performed, only I divide them under the two headings of public and
private explorations.
In the month of December, 1882, I was in this part of the world again.
During the six years that had elapsed since my last visit in 1876, a
survey party had reached these ranges on a trigonometrical survey, and
upon its return, the officer in charge reported having had some
trouble and a collision with the natives of the Everard Range. I
suppose my second visit occurred two years after that event. I was
accompanied on that journey by a very young friend, named Vernon
Edwards, from Adelaide, and two young men named Perkins and Fitz, the
latter being cook, and a very good fellow he proved to be, but Perkins
was nothing of the sort.
