Rain falls, and within a few hours the air will be
filled with the croaking of frogs and the cackling of ducks.* To my mind
it is one of the most incomprehensible things in Nature that wildfowl
(for not only ducks, but sometimes swans and geese are seen) know when and
where rain has fallen.
[* Sir John Forrest, in his exploration of 1874, found ducks, geese, and
swans on Lake Augusta - a salt lake in the arid interior, five hundred
miles from the coast.]
But, stranger still, how do they know it is going to fall? That they would
seem to do so the following will go to show. Whilst we were condensing on
Lake Lapage, one moonlight night we saw a flight of ducks fly over us to
the northward. No surface water then existed anywhere near us. This was on
December 16th. No rain fell in the district until December 25th, but I
ascertained afterwards that rain fell at Lake Carey, one hundred miles
north of Lake Lapage about the same date that we had seen the ducks. The
exact date I am not sure of, but in any case the ducks either foresaw the
rain or knew that rain had fallen at least two hundred miles away; for
they must have come from water (and at that season there was no surface
water within one hundred miles of us) and probably from the coast. In
either case, I think it is an extremely interesting fact, and however they
arrive the ducks are a welcome addition to the prospector's "tucker-bags."
CHAPTER IV
A CAMEL FIGHT
Leaving Hannan's on our left, we continued our northerly course, over flat
country timbered with the usual gum-forest, until we reached the
auriferous country in which our camp had been robbed by the blacks;
nothing of interest occurring until January 17th, when we found ourselves
without water. Knowing that we must soon strike the road from Broad Arrow
to Mount Margaret, this gave us no anxiety, and, beyond the necessity of
travelling without having had a drink for eighteen hours, but little
discomfort.
We struck the road as expected, and, following it some five miles, came to
a small, dry creek running down from a broken range of granite. Sinking in
its bed, we got a plentiful supply. Mosquitoes are very rarely found in
the interior, but on this little creek they swarmed, and could only be
kept away by fires of sticks and grass, in the smoke of which we slept.
From the granite hills a fine view to the eastward was obtained, across a
rich little plain of saltbush and grass, and dotted here and there over it
was a native peach tree, or "quondong," a species of sandalwood. We had
now left the timber behind us, its place being taken by a low, straggling
scrub of acacia, generally known as "Mulga," which continues in almost
unbroken monotony for nearly two hundred miles; the only change in the
landscape is where low cliffs of sandstone and ranges of granite, slate,
or diorite, crop up, from which creeks and watercourses find their way
into salt swamps and lakes; and occasional stretches of plain country.
Through these thickets we held on our course, passing various
watering-places and rocks on the several roads leading to the then popular
field of Mount Margaret.
All such rocks bear names given to them by travellers and diggers, though
one can seldom trace the origin or author of the name, "Black Gin Soak,"
"George Withers' Hole," "The Dead Horse Rocks," and the "Donkey Rocks,"
are fair samples.
It was at the last named that we had a slight entertainment in the shape
of a camel-fight. On arrival we found another camel-man (i.e., a man who
prospects with camels instead of horses, not necessarily a camel-driver)
in whose train was a large white bull. Misery, with his usual precocity,
at once began to show fight. The owner of the white camel, a gentleman
much given to "blowing," warned me that his bull was the "strongest in
the - - country," and advised me to keep my camels away. Anxious to see
how Misery would shape in a genuine bout, I paid no heed, but took the
precaution to remove his hobbles, thus placing him on equal terms with his
older and stronger adversary.
Before very long they were at it hammer and tongs, roaring and grunting to
the music of the bells on their necks; wrestling and struggling, using
their great long necks as flails, now one down on his knees and almost
turned over, and now the other, taking every opportunity of doing what
damage they could with their powerful jaws, they formed a strange picture.
Misery was nearly exhausted, and the white bull's master in triumph
shouted, "Take 'em off, beat 'em off; your - - camel'll be chewed up!"
But no! With a last expiring effort, brave little Misery dived his long
neck under the body of his enemy, and grabbed his hind leg by the fetlock,
when a powerful twist turned him over as neatly as could be. It was now
time for us to interfere before the white bull's head was crushed by his
conqueror's knees and breast-bone. With sticks and stones we drove him
off, and the white bull retired abashed - but not more so than his master.
Leaving the rocks in possession of our late adversary we once more plunged
into the scrub, altering our course to the west with the object of
revisiting the country around Mount Ida, where Luck and I had found
colours. Our way lay between salt lakes on our left, and a low terrace or
tableland of what is locally known as "conglomerate" on our right.
