I ascended a hill and saw that the two lines of hills encircling the Champ de Mars had now entirely separated, the space between becoming gradually broader.
A pointed hill at the far end of the southern line bore west, and we started away for it. We continued on this west course for fifteen or sixteen miles, having the southern hills very close to our line of march. Having travelled some twenty miles, I turned up a blind gully or water-channel in a small triodia valley, and found some water lying about amongst the grass. The herbage here was splendid. Ants and burrs were very annoying, however; we have been afflicted with both of these animal and vegetable annoyances upon many occasions all through these regions. There was a high, black-looking mountain with a conical summit, in the northern line of ranges, which bore north-westward from here. I named it Mount Aloysius, after the Christian name of Sir A.F. Weld, Governor of Western Australia. We had entered the territory of the Colony of Western Australia on the last day of September; the boundary between it and South Australia being the 129th meridian of east longitude. The latitude by stars of this camp was 26° 9´. Leaving it early, we continued upon the same line as yesterday, and towards the same hill, which we reached in five miles, and ascended. It was nearly the most westerly point of the line of hills we had been following. The summit of this hill I found to consist of great masses of rifted stone, which were either solid iron or stone coated thickly with it. The blocks rang with the sound of my iron-shod boots, while moving over them, with such a musical intonation and bell-like clang, that I called this the Bell Rock. Mount Aloysius bore north 9° west, distant about ten miles; here I saw it was quite an isolated range, as, at its eastern and western extremities, open spaces could be seen between it and any other hills.
[CHAPTER 2.4. FROM 30TH SEPTEMBER TO 9TH NOVEMBER, 1873.]
Native encampment. Fires alight. Hogarth's Wells. Mount Marie and Mount Jeanie. Pointed ranges to the west. Chop a passage. Traces of volcanic action. Highly magnetic hills. The Leipoa ocellata. Tapping pits. Glen Osborne. Cotton-bush flats. Frowning bastion walls. Fort Mueller. A strong running stream. Natives' smokes. Gosse returning. Limestone formation. Native pheasants' nests. Egg-carrying. Mount Squires. The Mus conditor's nest. Difficulty with the horses. A small creek and native well. Steer for the west. Night work. Very desolate places. A circular storm. The Shoeing Camp. A bare hill. The Cups. Fresh looking creek. Brine and bitter water. The desert pea. Jimmy and the natives. Natives prowling at night. Searching for water. Horses suffering from thirst. Horseflesh. The Cob. The camp on fire. Men and horses choking for water. Abandon the place. Displeasing view. Native signs. Another cup. Thermometer 106°. Return to the Cob. Old dry well. A junction from the east. Green rushes. Another waterless camp. Return to the Shoeing Camp. Intense cold. Biting dogs' noses. A nasal organ. Boiling an egg. Tietkens and Gibson return unsuccessful. Another attempt west. Country burnt by natives.
We had now been travelling along the northern foot of the more southerly of the two lines of hills which separated, at the west end of the Champ de Mars; and on reaching the Bell Rock, this southern line ceased, while the northern one still ran on, though at diminished elevation, and we now travelled towards two hills standing together about west-north-west. On reaching them, in thirteen miles, I found a native encampment; there were several old and new bough gunyahs, and the fires were alight at the doors? of many of them. We could not see the people because they hid themselves, but I knew quite well they were watching us close by. There was a large bare slab of rock, in which existed two fine cisterns several feet in depth, one much longer than the other, the small one containing quite a sufficient supply for all my horses. I called these Hogarth's Wells, and the two hills Mount Marie and Mount Jeanie. I was compelled to leave one of these receptacles empty, which for ages the simple inhabitants of these regions had probably never seen dry before. Some hills lay south-westerly, and we reached them in nine miles; they were waterless. Southward the country appeared all scrub. The western horizon was broken by ranges with some high points amongst them; they were a long way off. To the west-north-west some bald ranges also ran on. I made across to them, steering for a fall or broken gap to the north-north-west. This was a kind of glen, and I found a watercourse in it, with a great quantity of tea-tree, which completely choked up the passage with good-sized trees, whose limbs and branches were so interwoven that they prevented any animal larger than a man from approaching the water, bubbling along at their feet. We had to chop a passage to it for our horses. The hills were quite destitute of timber, and were composed of huge masses of rifted granite, which could only have been so riven by seismatic action, which at one time must have been exceedingly frequent in this region.
I may mention that, from the western half of the Musgrave Range, all the Mann, the Tomkinson, and other ranges westward have been shivered into fragments by volcanic force. Most of the higher points of all the former and latter consist of frowning masses of black-looking or intensely red ironstone, or granite thickly coated with iron. Triodia grows as far up the sides of the hills as it is possible to obtain any soil; but even this infernal grass cannot exist on solid rock; therefore all the summits of these hills are bare. These shivered masses of stone have large interstices amongst them, which are the homes, dens, or resorts of swarms of a peculiar marsupial known as the rock wallaby, which come down on to the lower grounds at night to feed. If they expose themselves in the day, they are the prey of aborigines and eagles, if at night, they fall victims to wild dogs or dingoes. The rocks frequently change their contours from earthquake shocks, and great numbers of these creatures are crushed and smashed by the trembling rocks, so that these unfortunate creatures, beset by so many dangers, exist always in a chronic state of fear and anxiety, and almost perpetual motion. These hills also have the metallic clang of the Bell Rock, and are highly magnetic. In the scrubs to-day Gibson found a Lowan's or scrub pheasant's nest. These birds inhabit the most waterless regions and the densest scrubs, and live entirely without water.
This bird is figured in Gould's work on Australian ornithology; it is called the Leipoa ocellata. Two specimens of these birds are preserved in the Natural History Department of the British Museum at Kensington. We obtained six fresh eggs from it. I found another, and got five more. We saw several native huts in the scrubs, some of them of large dimensions, having limbs of the largest trees they could get to build them with. When living here, the natives probably obtain water from roots of the mulga. This must be the case, for we often see small circular pits dug at the foot of some of these trees, which, however, generally die after the operation of tapping. I called the spot Glen Osborne*; we rested here a day. We always have a great deal of sewing and repairing of the canvas pack-bags to do, and a day of rest usually means a good day's work; it rests the horses, however, and that is the main thing. Saturday night, the 4th October, was a delightfully cool one, and on Sunday we started for some hills in a south-westerly direction, passing some low ridges. We reached the higher ones in twenty-two miles. Nearing them, we passed over some fine cotton-bush flats, so-called from bearing a small cotton-like pod, and immediately at the hills we camped on a piece of plain, very beautifully grassed, and at times liable to inundation. It was late when we arrived; no water could be found; but the day was cool, and the night promised to be so too; and as I felt sure I should get water in these hills in the morning, I was not very anxious on account of the horses. These hills are similar to those lately described, being greatly impregnated with iron and having vast upheavals of iron-coated granite, broken and lying in masses of black and pointed rock, upon all their summits. Their sides sloped somewhat abruptly, they were all highly magnetic, and had the appearance of frowning, rough-faced, bastion walls. Very early I climbed up the hills, and from the top I saw the place that was afterwards to be our refuge, though it was a dangerous one. This is called the Cavanagh Range, but as, in speaking of it as my depot, it was called Fort Mueller*, I shall always refer to it by that name. What I saw was a strong running stream in a confined rocky, scrubby glen, and smokes from natives' fires. When bringing the horses, we had to go over less difficult ground than I had climbed, and on the road we found another stream in another valley, watered the horses, and did not then go to my first find. There was fine open, grassy country all round this range; we followed the creek down from the hills to it. On reaching the lower grassy ground, we saw Mr. Gosse's dray-track again, and I was not surprised to see that the wagon had returned upon its outgoing track, and the party were now returning eastwards to South Australia. I had for some days anticipated meeting him; but now he was going east, and I west, I did not follow back after him. Shortly afterwards, rounding the spurs of these hills, we came to the channel of the Fort Mueller creek, which I had found this morning, and though there was no surface-water, we easily obtained some by digging in the sandy creek-bed. A peculiarity of the whole of this region is, that water cannot exist far from the rocky foundations of the hills; the instant the valleys open and any soil appears, down sinks the water, though a fine stream may be running only a few yards above. Blankets were again required for the last two nights. I found my position here to be in latitude 26° 12´, longitude 127° 59´ 0´´.
Leaving this encampment, we struck away for a new line of ranges. The country was very peculiar, and different from any we had yet met; it was open, covered with tall triodia, and consisted almost entirely of limestone. At intervals, eucalyptus-trees of the mallee kind, and a few of the pretty-looking bloodwood-trees and some native poplars were seen; there was no grass for several miles, and we only found some poor dry stuff for the horses in a patch of scrub, the ground all round being stony and triodia-set. To-day we came upon three Lowans' or native pheasants' nests. These birds, which somewhat resemble guinea-fowl in appearance, build extraordinarily large nests of sand, in which they deposit small sticks and leaves; here the female lays about a dozen eggs, the decomposition of the vegetable matter providing the warmth necessary to hatch them. These nests are found only in thick scrubs. I have known them five to six feet high, of a circular conical shape, and a hundred feet round the base. The first, though of enormous size, produced only two eggs; the second, four, and the third, six. We thanked Providence for supplying us with such luxuries in such a wilderness. There are much easier feats to perform than the carrying of Lowans' eggs, and for the benefit of any readers who don't know what those eggs are like, I may mention that they are larger than a goose egg, and of a more delicious flavour than any other egg in the world. Their shell is beautifully pink tinted, and so terribly fragile that, if a person is not careful in lifting them, the fingers will crunch through the tinted shell in an instant. Therefore, carrying a dozen of such eggs is no easy matter. 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.