They Had Previously Begged Nicholls To Shoot Kangaroos For Them, Thereby Showing That They Remembered The Use Of Firearms, Which Formerly I Had Been Compelled To Teach Them.

(ILLUSTRATION: GLEN FERDINAND.)

I was away from the party when this robbery was committed. Near the eastern end of this range it will be remembered I had formerly discovered a large watercourse, with a fine spring running along its bed, which I called the Ferdinand; here we encamped again. From hence I determined to reach the South Australian Telegraph Line upon a new route, and to follow the Ferdinand, which runs to the south. A mass of hills that I had formerly seen and named the Everard Ranges, lay in that direction, and I desired to visit them also. At and around the water at Glen Ferdinand, as well as at other places on this range, considerable quantities of dung, old tracks, and sleeping camps of cattle were found, but no live animals were seen.

After resting a day at Glen Ferdinand we departed, following the banks of the creek. Just at leaving, an old black man and two lads made their appearance. This old party was remarkably shy; the elder boy seemed a little frightened, and didn't relish being touched by a white man, but the youngest was quite at his ease, and came up to me with the audacity and insouciance of early youth, and pulled me about. When I patted him, he grinned like any other monkey. None of them were handsome; the old man was so monkey-like - he would have charmed the heart of Professor Darwin. I thought I had found the missing link, and I had thoughts of preserving him in methylated spirits, only I had not a bottle large enough.

Following the channel of the Ferdinand nearly south, we came to some limestone rises with one or two native wells, but no water was seen in them. The country was good, grassy, nearly level, with low, sandy, mulga rises, fit for stock of any kind. There were a few detached granite hills, peeping here and there amongst the tree-tops. The creek-channel appeared to run through, or close to, some of the hills of the Everard Ranges; and I left it to visit them. At one of the outcropping granite mounds, at about forty-eight miles from Glen Ferdinand, Alec Ross found a large native well, which bore 12 degrees east of south from Mount Ferdinand, a conspicuous point overlooking the glen. We did not require to use this well, but there was plenty of water in it. Arriving at the first hills of the Everard, I found they were all very peculiar, bare, red, granite mounds, being the most extraordinary ranges one could possibly imagine, if indeed any one could imagine such a scene. They have thousands of acres of bare rock, piled up into mountainous shapes and lay in isolated masses, forming something like a broken circle, all round a central and higher mass. They have valleys filled with scrubs between each section.

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