By Dispensing With His Services, As He Was Willing To Go, We Should Have Sufficient Provisions Left To Enable Us To Hold Out For Some Months Longer:

Even if we had to wait so long as the usual rainy season in this part of the country, which is about January and February, we should still have several months' provisions to start again with.

In all these considerations Mr. Carmichael fully agreed, and it was decided that I should inform Alec of our resolution so soon as we returned to the camp. After the usual nearly three hours' work to water our horses, we turned our backs for the last time upon Glen Thirsty, where we had so often returned with exhausted and choking horses.

I must admit that I was getting anxious about Robinson and the state of things at the camp. In going through Worrill's Pass, we noticed that scarcely a tree had escaped from being struck by the lightning; branches and boughs lay scattered about, and several pines from the summits of the ridges had been blasted from their eminence. I was not very much surprised, for I expected to be lightning-struck myself, as I scarcely ever saw such lightning before. We got back to Robinson and the camp at 5 p.m. My old horse that carried the pack had gone quite lame, and this caused us to travel very slowly. Robinson was alive and quite well, and the little dog was overjoyed to greet us. Robinson reported that natives had been frequently in the neighbourhood, and had lit fires close to the camp, but would not show themselves. Marzetti's mare had foaled, the progeny being a daughter; the horse that was staked was worse, and I found my old horse had also ran a mulga stake into his coronet. I probed the wounds of both, but could not get any wood out. Carmichael and I both thought we would like a day's rest; and if I did not do much work, at least I thought a good deal.

The lame horses are worse: the poisonous mulga must be in the wounds, but I can't get it out. What a pleasure it is, not only to have plenty of water to drink, but actually to have sufficient for a bath! I told Robinson of my views regarding him, but said he must yet remain until some eastern waters could be found. On the 30th October, Mr. Carmichael and I, with three fresh horses, started again. In my travels southerly I had noticed a conspicuous range of some elevation quite distinct from the ridges at which our camp was fixed, and lying nearly east, where an almost overhanging crag formed its north-western face. This range I now decided to visit. To get out of the ridges in which our creek exists, we had to follow the trend of a valley formed by what are sometimes called reaphook hills; these ran about east-south-east. In a few miles we crossed an insignificant little creek with a few gum-trees; it had a small pool of water in its bed: the valley was well grassed and open, and the triodia was also absent. A small pass ushered us into a new valley, in which were several peculiar conical hills.

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