I Intended Upon Returning Here To Endeavour To Discover A Line Of Country Round The South-Eastern Extremity Of Lake Amadeus, So As To Reach Mount Olga At Last.

We now turned our horses' heads again for our home camp, and continued travelling until we reached Stokes's Creek, where we encamped after a good long day's march.

This morning, as we were approaching Penny's Creek, we saw two natives looking most intently at our outgoing horse tracks, along which they were slowly walking, with their backs towards us. They neither saw nor heard us until we were close upon their heels. Each carried two enormously long spears, two-thirds mulga wood and one-third reed at the throwing end, of course having the instrument with which they project these spears, called by some tribes of natives only, but indiscriminately all over the country by whites, a wommerah. It is in the form of a flat ellipse, elongated to a sort of tail at the holding end, and short-pointed at the projecting end; a kangaroo's claw or wild dog's tooth is firmly fixed by gum and gut-strings. The projectile force of this implement is enormous, and these spears can be thrown with the greatest precision for more than a hundred yards. They also had narrow shields, three to four feet long, to protect themselves from hostile spears, with a handle cut out in the centre. These two natives had their hair tied up in a kind of chignon at the back of the head, the hair being dragged back off the forehead from infancy. This mode gave them a wild though somewhat effeminate appearance; others, again, wear their hair in long thick curls reaching down the shoulders, beautifully elaborated with iguanas' or emus' fat and red ochre. This applies only to the men; the women's hair is worn either cut with flints or bitten off short. So soon as the two natives heard, and then looking round saw us, they scampered off like emus, running along as close to the ground as it is possible for any two-legged creature to do. One was quite a young fellow, the other full grown. They ran up the side of the hills, and kept travelling along parallel to us; but though we stopped and called, and signalled with boughs, they would not come close, and the oftener I tried to come near them on foot, the faster they ran. They continued alongside us until King's Creek was reached, where we rested the horses for an hour. We soon became aware that a number of natives were in our vicinity, our original two yelling and shouting to inform the others of our advent, and presently we saw a whole nation of them coming from the glen or gorge to the south-west, where I had noticed camp-fires on my first arrival here. The new people were also shouting and yelling in the most furious and demoniacal manner; and our former two, as though deputed by the others, now approached us much nearer than before, and came within twenty yards of us, but holding their spears fixed in their wommerahs, in such a position that they could use them instantly if they desired.

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