I Took Upon Myself The Responsibility Of Bringing Our Prize Safe Into Camp, And I Accomplished The Task By Packing Them In Grass, Tied Up In A Handkerchief, And Slung Round My Neck; A Fine Fardel Hanging On My Chest, Immediately Under My Chin.

A photograph of a person with such an appendage would scarcely lead to recognition.

We used some of the eggs in our tea as a substitute for milk. A few of the eggs proved to possess some slight germs of vitality, the preliminary process being the formation of eyes. But explorers in the field are not such particular mortals as to stand upon such trifles; indeed, parboiled, youthful, Lowans' eyes are considered quite a delicacy in the camp.

At early dawn there was brilliant lightning to the west, and the horizon in that direction became cloudy. Thunder also was heard, but whatever storm there might have been, passed away to the south of us. In the course of a few miles we left the limestone behind, and sandhills again came on. We went over two low ridges, and five or six miles of scrub brought us to the hills we were steering for. Some pine-clad bare rocks induced us to visit them to see if there were rock-holes anywhere. Mr. Tietkens found a native well under one of the rocks, but no water was seen in it, so we went to the higher hills, and in a gully found but a poor supply. There was every appearance of approaching rain, and we got everything under canvas, but in the night of the 9th October a heavy gale of wind sprang up and blew away any rain that might have fallen. As, however, it was still cloudy, we remained in camp.

From the highest hill here, called Mount Squires, the appearance of the country surrounding was most strange. To the west, and round by north-west to north, was a mass of broken timbered hills with scrubby belts between. The atmosphere was too hazy to allow of distinct vision, but I could distinguish lines of hills, if not ranges, to the westward for a long distance. The view was by no means encouraging, but as hills run on, though entirely different now from those behind us, our only hope is that water may yet be discovered in them. The whole region round about was enveloped in scrubs, and the hills were not much more than visible above them.

The sky had remained cloudy all yesterday, and I hoped, if the wind would only cease, rain would surely fall; so we waited and hoped against hope. We had powerful reverberations of thunder, and forked and vivid lightnings played around, but no rain fell, although the atmosphere was surcharged with electricity and moisture. The wished-for rain departed to some far more favoured places, some happier shores from these remote; and as if to mock our wishes, on the following morning we had nearly three minutes' sprinkling of rain, and then the sky became clear and bright.

By this time we had used up all the water we could find, and had to go somewhere else to get more. A terrible piece of next-to-impassable scrub, four or five miles through, lay right in our path; it also rose and fell into ridges and gullies in it. We saw one of the Mus conditor, or building rats' nests, which is not the first we have seen by many on this expedition. The scrub being so dense, it was impossible to see more than two or three of the horses at a time, and three different times some of them got away and tried to give us the slip; this caused a great deal of anxiety and trouble, besides loss of time. Shortly after emerging from the scrubs, we struck a small creek with one or two gumtrees on it; a native well was in the bed, and we managed to get water enough for the horses, we having only travelled six miles straight all day. This was a very good, if not actually a pretty, encampment; there was a narrow strip of open ground along the banks, and good vegetation for the horses. We slept upon the sandy bed of the creek to escape the terrible quantities of burrs which grew all over these wilds.

We steered away nearly west for the highest hills we had seen yesterday; there appeared a fall or gap between two; the scrubs were very thick to-day, as was seen by the state of our pack-bags, an infallible test, when we stopped for the night, during the greater part of which we had to repair the bags. We could not find any water, and we seemed to be getting into very desolate places. A densely scrubby and stony gully was before us, which we had to get through or up, and on reaching the top I was disappointed to find that, though there was an open valley below, the hills all round seemed too much disconnected to form any good watering places. Descending, and leaving Gibson and Jimmy with the horses, Mr. Tietkens and I rode in different directions in search of water. In about two hours we met, in the only likely spot either of us had seen; this was a little watercourse, and following it up to the foot of the hills found a most welcome and unexpectedly large pond for such a place. Above it in the rocks were a line of little basins which contained water, with a rather pronounced odour of stagnation about it; above them again the water was running, but there was a space between upon which no water was seen. We returned for the horses and camped as near as we could find a convenient spot; this, however, was nearly a mile from the water. The valley ran north-east and south-west; it was very narrow, not too open, and there was but poor grass and herbage, the greater portion of the vegetation being spinifex.

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