[WHERE THE PELICAN BUILDS ITS NEST]
There is little need to recount the monotonous details of my log-book for the many weeks that ensued. The same description applies to nearly all the vast interior country, and we struggled over ironshot sand-plains and through scraggy brushwood belts, with rarely a diversion in the landscape to gladden our weary eyes. The sun shines on no more desolate or dreary country than this great "Never Never" land of Australia, whose grim deserts have claimed many a victim to the cause of knowledge. The explorer's life amid the deadly solitudes is not one of many pleasures. Rather do unpleasant possibilities for ever obtrude upon his jaded brain until he is well-nigh distraught, or at least reduced to a morbid state of melancholy in keeping with his miserable surroundings. Little wonder, therefore, that disaster so often attends the traveller in these lonely lands. The strongest will becomes weakened by the insidious influences of the country, and the most buoyant spirit is quickly dulled. All Nature seems to conspire against him. The stunted mallee and mulga shrubs afford no welcome shade; they dot the sand-wastes in endless even growths, and the eye is wearied by their everlasting motionless presence. The saltbush clumps and spinifex patches conceal hideous reptiles. Snakes and centipedes crawl across the track; scaly lizards, venomous scorpions, ungainly bungarrows, and a host of nameless pests, are always near to torture and distract. Even the birds are imbued with a solemnity profound that adds still more to the plenteous cares that already overwhelm the wanderer in the silent bushland. The pelican stands owlishly in his path as if to guard from intrusion its undiscovered home; the horrible carrion crow with its demoralising croak is for ever circling overhead; and the mopoke's dull monotone is as a calling from a shadowy world.
These various influences were not without their effect upon my little party, and we became strangely silent as we kept up our dogged march of fifteen miles each day; and when danger threatened, as it did on more than one occasion, we almost viewed our approaching fate with indifference, so sodden had our mental faculties become. Eleven days after leaving the mountain, our last horse, "Sir John," dropped quietly to the ground, utterly exhausted, and at once the air was filled with screaming crows, and flies in thousands began to settle on the dying animal's heaving flank, and crowded into his ears and nostrils. I ended the poor brute's agony with a revolver shot, and again old "Slavery" received additional burden; then we hastened onwards, not daring to look back.
We were now many hundreds of miles from any outpost settlement, and with only two camels between us and—eternity. Yet these ponderous animals bore up bravely, seldom showing signs of weakness even when crossing the most dismally arid wastes, and their slow but sure movement raised our drooping spirits when our circling crow convoy became suggestively daring. I made a course due north, determined to intersect any promising country that might intervene in the middle latitudes, but so far our changed route had led us full three hundred miles over the most barren-looking desert that could possibly be imagined.
Only once did we observe natives, and that was when under the 23rd Parallel, in a scrubby country offering the only inducement to the poor nomads within a hundred miles. At this place we located a local well containing, seemingly, an unlimited supply of lime-flavoured fluid; our perilously-flat water-bags were thankfully refilled, and our hopes rose high at the unexpected find. But when we renewed our march the scrub-land soon merged into the blistering plain, and our dreams of a coming El Dorado were again rudely dashed.
On one occasion we encountered a stretch of salt-crusted country, evidently the bed of an ancient lake: it extended for five miles in a N.N.E. direction, and towards its latter extremity the surface was marshy and damp. We extracted sufficient moisture from the muddy basin for cooking our usual allowance of rice, so that we might save what remained of our comparatively fresh supply for more urgent needs.
Beyond this swamp we entered upon a more broken expanse than had met our view for many weeks. Decaying sandstone rocks reared their heads above the gravel, and enormous dry gullies tore up the ground in all directions. But this state of affairs did not continue with us long, and, as if by a grim law of compensation, a belt of the most miserable sand country soon intervened to retard our progress. Here the sand was loose and deep, and unmixed with the usual iron gravel; and the slightest wind blew the fine dust into our faces, almost blinding us. We sank over the ankles at each step, and the camels slowed their already slow march to a mere crawl, and staggered and floundered in the wavy masses.
Gradually the land-surface took on the appearance of a great sand-sea, with billows rolling back in a northwesterly direction. As far as the eye could reach, a series of gentle undulations rippled into the vast distance. I altered the course several points to eastward, and we traversed the disheartening obstacles at a difficult angle; but the undulations grew more general as we advanced, until they surrounded us in the form of seemingly endless furrows, about a hundred and fifty yards apart, and from ten to fifteen feet in height. A sparse vegetation of spinifex found root in the hill-crests, giving the appearance—from a distance—of a huge cultivated and well-tended field. But on closer acquaintance the ridges showed up miserably bare and cheerless, and their white gleaming sand formation caused our eyes to quiver and close, so trying was the light reflected from them. No life of any kind was observed. Even the crows had abandoned us. We seemed to be traversing the bed of an ocean whose waters had long since subsided. A day's march over these hindering obstructions, however, led us into the familiar ironshot and scrub country, which, desolate though it was, looked cool and inviting after our experience with the sand elevations.
More than once after this fortune favoured us opportunely by the happy location of a soak or claypan in our course, and we grew to trust Providence in a much greater measure than we had ever anticipated. The weather was almost unbearably hot; a vertical sun stared down on us in the daytime with burning intensity, and at night the air was as the breath of Hades. We were surely paying the penalty of the pioneer to the full.
By this time our clothing had reached a state far beyond repair, and we must have formed an extraordinarily dilapidated-looking quartet. Our garments, not very lavish from the start, had been discarded in tattered portions, and we were left with cool and scanty apparel, the sight of which would have caused the most abandoned tramp to turn aside in disgust. It came to be a subject of jocularity with us as we noted the gradual disintegration of our meagre remaining sartorial glory; and I was glad even for such an excuse to introduce the lighter vein into our conversation. "I'll shin be able tae flee," Mac would say, ruefully surveying his rags. "Ay, Mac, the wings are sproutin' awfu' fast," his comrade would sorrowfully reply. "Bit it's a blessin' the weather's no cauld," he never failed to add, with philosophical gratitude.