The sun went down, and I returned to my youthful companion with the horses below. We were fifty-one miles from the water we had left. The horses were pictures of misery, old Buggs's legs had swelled greatly from the contusions he had received in falling on the slippery rocks. The old black mare which I rode, though a sorry hack, looked worse than I had ever seen her before, and even the youthful and light-heeled and -hearted Diaway hung his head, and one could almost span him round the flanks. The miserable appearance of the animals was caused as much by want of food as want of water, for they have scarcely eaten a mouthful since we left the pass; indeed, all they had seen to eat was not inviting.
We slowly left these desolate ridges behind, and at fifteen miles we camped, Jimmy and I being both hungry and thirsty. Our small supply of water only tantalised, without satisfying us whenever we took a mouthful. We now found we had nothing to eat, at least nothing cooked, and we had to sacrifice a drop of our stock of water to make a Johnny-cake. It was late by the time we had eaten our supper, and I told Jimmy he had better go to sleep if he felt inclined; I then caught and tied up the horses, which had already rambled some distance away. When I got back I found Jimmy had literally taken me at my word; for there he was fast asleep among the coals and ashes of the fire, in which we had cooked our cake. I rolled him over once or twice to prevent him catching fire, but he did not awake. The night was very warm; I tried to lay down on my rug, but I was in such pain all over from my recent accident, that I could not remain still. I only waited to allow Jimmy a little sleep, or else he would have fallen off his horse, and caused more delay. I walked to, and tried to console, the horses. Sleepless and restless, I could no longer remain.
Fast asleep is Armor lying—do not touch him, do not wake him; but Armor had to be awakened. But first I saddled and put up everything on the horses. Jimmy's lips were cracked and parched, and his tongue dry and half out of his mouth; I thought the kindest way to wake him was to pour a little water into his mouth. Up he jumped in a moment, and away we went at three o'clock in the morning, steering by the stars until daylight; slowly moving over sandhill after sandhill. Soon after sunrise we fell in with our outgoing track, and continued on, though we had great trouble to keep the horses going at all, until we reached our old encampment of the night before last, being now only fifteen miles from the water. For the last few miles the horses had gone so dreadfully slow, I thought they would give in altogether. So soon as they were unsaddled they all lay down, shivering and groaning fearfully.
To see a horse in a state of great thirst is terrible, the natural cavity opens to an extraordinary size, and the creature strains and makes the most lamentable noises. Mares are generally worse in these cases than horses. Old Buggs and the mare were nearly dead. Diaway suffered less than the others. We had yet a small quantity of water in our bag, and it was absolutely necessary to sacrifice it to the horses if we wished them ever to return. We had but three pints, which we gave to Buggs and the mare, Diaway getting none. What the others got was only just enough to moisten their tongues. Leaving this place at eleven a.m., we reached the gorge at sundown, travelling at the rate of only two miles an hour. The day was hot, 104° at eleven a.m. When we took the saddles off the horses, they fell, as they could only stand when in motion—old Buggs fell again in going up the gorge; they all fell, they were so weak, and it took nearly an hour to get them up to the bath. They were too weak to prevent themselves from slipping in, swimming and drinking at the same time; at last old Buggs touched the bottom with his heels, and stood upon his hind-legs with his forefeet against the rock wall, and his head bent down between, and drank thus. I never saw a horse drink in that fashion before.
It was very late when we got them back to the camp-tree, where we let them go without hobbles. The ants were as rampant as ever, and I passed another night in walking up and down the glen. Towards midnight the horses came again for water, but would not return, preferring to remain till morning rather than risk a passage down in the dark.
I went right up to the top of the mountain, and got an hour's peace before the sun rose. In the morning all the horses' legs were puffed and swelled, and they were frightened to move from the water. I had great trouble in getting them down at all. It was impossible to ride them away, and here we had to remain for another day, in this Inferno. Not Dante's, gelid lowest circle of Hell, or city of Dis, could cause more anguish, to a forced resident within its bounds, than did this frightful place to me. Even though Moses did omit to inflict ants on Pharaoh, it is a wonder Dante never thought to have a region of them full of wicked wretches, eternally tortured with their bites, and stings, and smells. Dante certainly was good at imagining horrors. But imagination can't conceive the horror of a region swarming with ants and then Dante never lived in an ant country, and had no conception what torture such creatures can inflict. The smaller they are the more terrible. My only consolation here was my marble bath, which the horses had polluted; within its cool and shady depths I could alone find respite from my tormentors. Oh, how earnestly did I wish that its waters were the waters of oblivion, or that I could quaff some kind nepenthe, which would make me oblivious of my woes, for the persistent attacks of the ants unceasingly continued
“From night till morn, from morn till dewy eve.”
Here of course we had no dewy eve. Only one slight source of pleasure at length occurred to me, and that was, that Jimmy began to shift about a bit at last. On the 26th, with what delight I departed from this odious gorge after another night of restlessness, agony, and misery, may perhaps be imagined, though of course I was indebted to the glen for water, and unless we actually give up our lives, we cannot give up that. There was a good deal of water in this bath, as may be supposed when horses could swim about in it. I called it Edith's Marble Bath, after my niece, having named Glen Edith also after her on my former expedition. The stone here is not actually marble, though very like it. I saw no limestone in this range; the only approach to it is in the limestone formation in the bed of the ancient Lake Christopher, mentioned as lying to the west of the Rawlinson Range. The stone here was a kind of milky quartz. We kept away as much as possible off the rough slopes of the range, and got to Glen Helen at night, but old Buggs knocked up, and we had to lead, beat, and drive him on foot, so that it was very late before we got to the glen. We got all three horses back to the pass early the next day. No natives had appeared, but the horses had never been seen since I left. Oh, didn't I sleep that night! no ants. Oh, happiness! I hadn't slept for a week.
The next day, the 28th of February, Gibson and Jimmy went to look for the mob of horses. There was a watering-place about two miles and a half south from here, where emus used to water, and where the horses did likewise; there they found all the horses. There was a very marked improvement in their appearance, they had thriven splendidly. There is fine green feed here, and it is a capital place for an explorer's depot, it being such an agreeable and pretty spot. Gibson and Jimmy went to hunt for emus, but we had none for supper. We got a supply of pigeons for breakfast. Each day we more deeply lament that the end of our ammunition is at hand. For dinner we got some hawks, crows, and parrots. I don't know which of these in particular disagreed with me, but I suppose the natural antipathy of these creatures to one another, when finding themselves somewhat crowded in my interior, was casus belli enough to set them quarrelling even after death and burial; all I knew was the belli was going on in such a peculiar manner that I had to abandon my dinner almost as soon as I had eaten it. It is now absolutely necessary to kill a horse for food, as our ammunition is all but gone. Mr. Tietkens and I went to find a spot to erect a smoke-house, which required a soft bank for a flue; we got a place half a mile away. Thermometer 104°. Mr. Tietkens and I commenced operations at the smoke-house, and the first thing we did was to break the axe handle. Gibson, who thought he was a carpenter, blacksmith, and jack-of-all-trades by nature, without art, volunteered to make a new one, to which no one objected. The new handle lasted until the first sapling required was almost cut in two, when the new handle came in two also; so we had to return to the camp, while Gibson made another handle on a new principle. With this we worked while Gibson and Jimmy shod a couple of horses. A pair of poking brutes of horses are always away by themselves, and Mr. Tietkens and I went to look for, but could not find them. We took the shovel and filled up the emu water-hole with sand, so that the horses had to show themselves with the others at the pass at night. For two or three days we shod horses, shot pigeons, and worked at the smoke-house. I did not like the notion of killing any of the horses, and determined to make a trip eastwards, to see what the country in that direction was like. We chopped up some rifle bullets for shot, to enable Gibson and Jimmy to remain while we were away, as a retreat to Fort Mueller from here was a bitter idea to me. Before I can attempt to penetrate to the west, I must wait a change in the weather. The sky was again becoming cloudy, and I had hopes of rain at the approaching equinox.
The three horses we required for the trip we put down through the north side of the pass. On March 10th, getting our horses pretty easily, we started early. As soon as we got clear of the pass on the north side, almost immediately in front of us was another pass, lying nearly east, which we reached in five miles. I called this the Weld Pass. From hence we had a good view of the country farther east. A curved line of abrupt-faced hills traversed the northern horizon; they had a peculiar and wall-like appearance, and seemed to end at a singular-looking pinnacle thirty-four or five miles away, and lying nearly east. This abrupt-faced range swept round in a half circle, northwards, and thence to the pinnacle. We travelled along the slopes of the Rawlinson Range, thinking we might find some more good gorges before it ended, we being now nearly opposite the Alice Falls. One or two rough and stony gullies, in which there was no water, existed; the country was very rough. I found the Rawlinson Range ended in fifteen or sixteen miles, at the Mount Russell* mentioned before. Other ranges rose up to the east; the intervening country seemed pretty well filled with scrub. We pushed on for the pinnacle in the northern line, but could not reach it by night as we were delayed en route by searching in several places for water. The day was hot, close, cloudy, and sultry. In front of us now the country became very scrubby as we approached the pinnacle, and for about three miles it was almost impenetrable. We had to stop several times and chop away limbs and boughs to get through, when we emerged on the bank of a small gum creek, and, turning up its channel, soon saw some green rushes in the bed. A little further up we saw more, brighter and greener, and amongst them a fine little pond of water. Farther up, the rocks rose in walls, and underneath them we found a splendid basin of overflowing water, which filled several smaller ones below. We could hear the sound of splashing and rushing waters, but could not see from whence those sounds proceeded. This was such an excellent place that we decided to remain for the rest of the day. The natives were all round us, burning the country, and we could hear their cries. This morning we had ridden through two fresh fires, which they lit, probably, to prevent our progress; they followed us up to this water. I suppose they were annoyed at our finding such a remarkably well-hidden place. It is a very singular little glen. There are several small mounds of stones placed at even distances apart, and, though the ground was originally all stones, places like paths have been cleared between them. There was also a large, bare, flat rock in the centre of these strange heaps, which were not more than two and a half feet high. I concluded—it may be said uncharitably, but then I know some of the ways and customs of these people—that these are small kinds of teocallis, and that on the bare rock already mentioned the natives have performed, and will again perform, their horrid rites of human butchery, and that the drippings of the pellucid fountains from the rocky basins above have been echoed and re-echoed by the dripping fountains of human gore from the veins and arteries of their bound and helpless victims. Though the day was hot, the shade and the water were cool, and we could indulge in a most luxurious bath. The largest basin was not deep, but the water was running in and out of it, over the rocks, with considerable force. We searched about to discover by its sound from whence it came, and found on the left-hand side a crevice of white quartz-like stone, where the water came down from the upper rocks, and ran away partly into the basins and partly into rushes, under our feet. On the sloping face of the white rock, and where the water ran down, was a small indent or smooth chip exactly the size of a person's mouth, so that we instinctively put our lips to it, and drank of the pure and gushing element. I firmly believe this chip out of the rock has been formed by successive generations of the native population, for ages placing their mouths to and drinking at this spot; but whether in connection with any sacrificial ceremonies or no, deponent knoweth, and sayeth not. The poet Spenser, more than three hundred years ago, must have visited this spot—at least, in imagination, for see how he describes it:—