In A Foot Or So He Comes Upon A Root, Which He Shakes Upwards, Gradually Getting More And More Of

It out of the ground, till he comes to the foot of the tree; he then breaks it off, and

Has a root perhaps fifteen feet long - this, by the way, is an extreme length. He breaks the root into sections about a foot long, ties them into bundles, and stands them up on end in a receptacle, when they drain out a quantity of beautifully sweet, pure water. A very long root such as I have mentioned might give nearly a bucketful of water; but woe to the white man who fancies he can get water out of mallee. There are a few other trees of different kinds that water is also got from, as I have known it obtained from the mulga, acacia trees, and from some casuarina trees; it depends upon the region they are in, as to what trees give the most if any water, but it is an aboriginal art at any time or place to find it.

The mallee we found so dense that not a third of the horses could be seen together, and with great difficulty we managed to reach the foot of a small pine-clad hill lying under the foot of the high bluff before mentioned - there a small creek lined with eucalypts ran under its foot. Though our journey to-day was only twelve miles, that distance through such horrible scrubs took us many hours.

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