We set to work to shoe some of the horses. When Tommy is smoked we shall depart. He proved to have more flesh on his bones than I anticipated, and he may last us for a month. The next few days got hot and sultry, and rain again threatened. If we could only get a good fall, out to the west we would go again without a further thought; for if heavy rain fell we would surely find some receptacle at the Alfred and Marie Range to help us on? But no, the rain would not come. Every drop in this singular region seems meted and counted out, yet there are the marks of heavy floods on all the watercourses. The question of when did the floods occur, which caused these marks, and when, oh when, will such phenomena occur again, is always recurring to me. The climate of this region too seems most extraordinary; for both last night and the night before we could all lie on our blankets without requiring a rag to cover us, while a month ago it was so cold at night that we actually wanted fires. I never knew the nights so warm in May in any other parts I have visited, and I cannot determine whether this is a peculiarity of the region, or whether the present is an unusual season throughout this half of the continent. With the exception of a few showers which fell in January, not a drop of rain to leave water has fallen since I left the telegraph line.
I cannot leave this singular spot without a few remarks on its peculiarities and appearance, for its waters are undoubtedly permanent, and may be useful to future travellers. In the first place Fort McKellar bears 12° east of south from the highest ridge of Mount Destruction, in the Carnarvon Range; that mountain, however, is partially hidden by the intervening low hills where Mr. Tietkens's riding-horse Bluey died. In consequence I called it Bluey's Range. This depot is amongst a heavy clump of fine eucalypts, which are only thick for about a quarter of a mile. From beneath this clump a fine strong spring of the purest water flows, and just opposite our fort is a little basin with a stony bottom, which we had to bridge over to reach the western bank. The grazing capabilities of the country are very poor, and the horses only existed here since leaving the pass. On the 20th it was a month since Gibson and I departed for the west. This morning three natives came up near the camp, but as they or their tribe had so lately attacked it, I had no very loving feelings for them, although we had a peaceable interview. The only information I could glean from them was that their word for travelling, or going, or coming, was “Peterman”. They pointed to Mount Destruction, and intimated that they were aware that we had “Petermaned” there, that we had “Petermaned” both from the east and to the west. Everything with them was “Peterman”. It is singular how identical the word is in sound with the name of the late Dr. Petermann, the geographer. In looking over Gibson's few effects, Mr. Tietkens and I found, in an old pocketbook, a drinking song and a certificate of his marriage: he had never told us anything about this.
[CHAPTER 2.11. FROM 21ST MAY TO 20TH JULY, 1874.]
Depart for civilisation. The springs at the pass. Farewell to Sladen Water. The Schwerin Mural Crescent. The return route. Recross the boundary line. Natives and their smokes. A canine telegram. New features. The Sugar-loaf. Mount Olga once more. Ayers' Rock. Cold weather. A flat-topped hill. Abandon a horse. A desert region. A strange feature. Lake Amadeus again. A new smoke-house. Another smoked horse. The glue-pot. An invention. Friendly natives. A fair and fertile tract. The Finke. A white man. A sumptuous repast. Sale of horses and gear. The Charlotte. The Peake. In the mail. Hear of Dick's death. In Adelaide. Concluding remarks.
On the afternoon of Thursday, 21st May, we began our retreat, and finally left Fort McKellar, where my hopes had been as high as my defeat was signal. On arriving at the pass we camped close to the beautiful fresh-water springs, where both Mr. Tietkens and Gibson, had planted a patch of splendid soil, Gibson having done the same at Fort McKellar with all kinds of seeds; but the only thing that came up well here was maize. That looked splendid, and had grown nearly three feet high. The weather was now delightful, and although in full retreat, had there been no gloom upon our feelings, had we had any good food to eat, with such fine horses as Banks, and Diaway, W.A., Trew, Blackie, etc. to ride, and a line of well-watered country before us for hundreds of miles, we might have considered our return a pleasure trip; but gloom covered our retreat, and we travelled along almost in silence. The pass was a place I greatly liked, and it was free from ants. There was a long line of fine eucalyptus timber and an extensive piece of ground covered with rushes, which made it look very pretty; altogether it was a most desirable spot for an explorer's camp, and an excellent place for the horses, as they soon got fat here. It is impossible that I should ever forget Sladen Water or the Pass of the Abencerrages: “Methinks I am as well in this valley as I have been anywhere else in all our journey; the place methinks suits with my spirit. I love to be in such places, where there is no rattling with coaches, nor rumbling with wheels. Methinks here one may, without much molestation, be thinking what he is, and whence he came; what he has done, and to what the king has called him” (Bunyan). On the Queen's birthday we bade it a last farewell, and departed for the east and civilisation, once more. We now had the route that Mr. Tietkens and I had explored in March—that is to say, passing and getting water at all the following places:—Gill's Pinnacle, the Ruined Rampart, Louisa's Creek, and the Chirnside. The country, as I have said before, was excellent and good for travelling over. The crescent-shaped and wall-like range running from the Weld Pass to Gill's Pinnacle, and beyond it, I named the Schwerin Mural Crescent; and a pass through it I named Vladimar Pass, in honour of Prince Vladimar, son of the Emperor of Russia, married to the Princess of Schwerin. When we reached the place where we first surprised the natives hunting, in March, we made a more northerly detour, as our former line had been through and over very rough hills, and in so doing we found on the 1st of June another splendid watering-place, where several creeks joined and ran down through a rocky defile, or glen, to the north. There was plenty of both rock and sand water here, and it was a very pretty and excellent little place. I called it Winter's* Glen, and the main creek of the three in which it lies, Irving Creek. This water may easily be found by a future traveller, from its bearing from a high, long-pointed hill abruptly ending to the west, which I named Mount Phillips. This is a very conspicuous mount in this region, being, like many of the others named on this line, detached to allow watercourses to pass northwards, and yet forming a part of the long northern wall, of which the Petermann Range is formed. This mount can be distinctly seen from Mount Olga, although it is seventy miles away, and from whence it bears 4° north of west. The water gorge at Winter's Glen bears west from the highest point of Mount Phillips, and four miles away. We were now again in the territories of South Australia, having bid farewell to her sister state, and turned our backs upon that peculiar province of the sun, the last of austral lands he shines upon. We next paid a visit to Glen Robertson, of 15th March, as it was a convenient place from which to make a straight line to the Sugar-loaf. To reach it we had to make a circuitous line, under the foot of the farthest east hill, where, it will be remembered, we had been attacked during dinner-time. We reached the glen early. There was yet another detached hill in the northern line, which is the most eastern of the Petermann Range. I named it Mount McCulloch. It can also easily be distinguished from Mount Olga. From Glen Robertson Mount McCulloch bore 3° east of north. We rested here a day, during which several natives made their appearance and lit signal fires for others. There is a great difference between signal and hunting fires; we were perfectly acquainted with both, as my reader may imagine. One aboriginal fiend, of the Homo sapiens genus, while we were sitting down sewing bags as usual, sneaked so close upon us, down the rocks behind the camp, that he could easily have touched or tomahawked—if he had one—either of us, before he was discovered. My little dog was sometimes too lazy to obey, when a little distance off, the command to sit, or stand up; in that case I used to send him a telegram, as I called it—that is to say, throw a little stone at him, and up he would sit immediately. This sneak of a native was having a fine game with us. Cocky was lying down near Mr. Tietkens, when a stone came quietly and roused him, causing him to sit up. Mr. Tietkens patted him, and he lay down again. Immediately after another stone came, and up sat Cocky. This aroused Mr. Tietkens's curiosity, as he didn't hear me speak to the dog, and he said, “Did you send Cocky a telegram?” I said, “No.” “Well then,” said he, “somebody did twice: did you, Jimmy?” “No.” “Oh!” I exclaimed, “it's those blacks!” We jumped up and looked at the low rocks behind us, where we saw about half-a-dozen sidling slowly away behind them. Jimmy ran on top, but they had all mysteriously disappeared. We kept a sharp look out after this, and fired a rifle off two or three times, when we heard some groans and yells in front of us up the creek gorge.
Having got some rock water at the Sugar-loaf or Stevenson's Peak in coming out, we went there again. On the road, at nine miles, we crossed another large wide creek running north. I called it the Armstrong*; there was no water where we crossed it. At twenty miles I found another fine little glen, with a large rock-hole, and water in the sand of the creek-bed. I called this Wyselaski's* Glen, and the creek the Hopkins. It was a very fine and pretty spot, and the grass excellent. On reaching the Peak or Sugar-loaf, without troubling the old rocky shelf, so difficult for horses to approach, and where there was very little water, we found another spot, a kind of native well, half a mile west of the gorge, and over a rise. We pushed on now for Mount Olga, and camped in casuarina and triodia sandhills without water. The night of the 5th June was very cold and windy; my only remaining thermometer is not graduated below 36°. The mercury was down in the bulb this morning. Two horses straying delayed us, and it was quite late at night when Mount Olga was reached. I was very much pleased to see the little purling brook gurgling along its rocky bed, and all the little basins full. The water, as when I last saw it, ended where the solid rock fell off. The country all around was excessively dry, and the grass withered, except in the channel of the creek, where there was some a trifle green. From here I had a desire to penetrate straight east to the Finke, as a considerable distance upon that line was yet quite unknown. One of our horses, Formby, was unwell, and very troublesome to drive. We are nearly at the end of our stock of Tommy, and Formby is a candidate for the smoke-house that will evidently be elected, though we have yet enough Tommy for another week. While here, I rode round northward to inspect that side of this singular and utterly unclimbable mountain. Our camp was at the south face, under a mound which lay up against the highest mound of the whole. On the west side I found another running spring, with some much larger rock-basins than at our camp. Of course the water ceased running where the rock ended. Round on the north side I found a still stronger spring, in a larger channel. I rode completely round the mass of this wonderful feature; its extraordinary appearance will never be out of my remembrance. It is no doubt of volcanic origin, belched out of the bowels, and on to the surface, of the earth, by the sulphurous upheavings of subterraneous and subaqueous fires, and cooled and solidified into monstrous masses by the gelid currents of the deepmost waves of the most ancient of former oceans. As I before remarked, it is composed of mixed and rounded stones, formed into rounded shapes, but some upon the eastern side are turreted, and some almost pillars, except that their thickness is rather out of proportion to their height. The highest point of the whole, as given before, is 1500 feet above the ground, while it is 2800 feet above the sea-level. Could I be buried at Mount Olga, I should certainly borrow Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph, Circumspice si monumentum requiris. To the eastward from here, as mentioned in my first expedition, and not very far off, lay another strange and singular-looking mound, similar perhaps to this. Beyond that, and still further to the east, and a very long way off, was another mount or hill or range, but very indistinct from distance.
On the 9th we went away to the near bare-looking mountain to the east; it was twenty miles. We found a very fine deep pool of water lying in sand under the abrupt and rocky face of the mount upon its southern side. There was also a fine, deep, shady, and roomy cave here, ornamented in the usual aboriginal fashion. There were two marks upon the walls, three or four feet long, in parallel lines with spots between them.
Mr. Gosse had been here from the Gill's Range of my former expedition, and must have crossed the extremity of Lake Amadeus. He named this Ayers' Rock. Its appearance and outline is most imposing, for it is simply a mammoth monolith that rises out of the sandy desert soil around, and stands with a perpendicular and totally inaccessible face at all points, except one slope near the north-west end, and that at least is but a precarious climbing ground to a height of more than 1100 feet. Down its furrowed and corrugated sides the trickling of water for untold ages has descended in times of rain, and for long periods after, until the drainage ceased, into sandy basins at its feet. The dimensions of this vast slab are over two miles long, over one mile through, and nearly a quarter of a mile high. The great difference between it and Mount Olga is in the rock formation, for this is one solid granite stone, and is part and parcel of the original rock, which, having been formed after its state of fusion in the beginning, has there remained, while the aged Mount Olga has been thrown up subsequently from below. Mount Olga is the more wonderful and grotesque; Mount Ayers the more ancient and sublime. There is permanent water here, but, unlike the Mount Olga springs, it lies all in standing pools. There is excellent grazing ground around this rock, though now the grass is very dry. It might almost be said of this, as of the Pyramids or the Sphinx, round the decay of that colossal rock, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. This certainly was a fine place for a camp. The water was icy cold; a plunge into its sunless deeps was a frigid tonic that, further west in the summer heats, would have been almost paradisiacal, while now it was almost a penalty. The hill or range further east seems farther away now than it did from Mount Olga. It is flat on the summit, and no doubt is the same high and flat-topped mount I saw from the Sentinel in August last. We are encamped in the roomy cave, for we find it much warmer than in the outer atmosphere, warmth being as great a consideration now, as shade had formerly been.
We started for the flat-topped hill on the 11th of June. The country was all extremely heavy sandhills, with casuarina and triodia; we had to encamp among them at twenty-three miles, without water. The next morning Formby knocked up, and lay down, and we had to leave him in the scrub. To-day we got over thirty miles, the hill being yet seven or eight miles off. It looks most repulsive, so far as any likelihoods of obtaining water is concerned. The region was a perfect desert, worse for travelling, indeed, than Gibson's Desert itself. Leaving Jimmy with the horses, Mr. Tietkens and I rode over to the mount, and reached it in seven miles. At a mile and a half from it we came to an outer escarpment of rocks; but between that and the mount more sandhills and thick scrub exist. We rode all round this strange feature; it was many hundreds of feet high, and for half its height its sides sloped; the crown rested upon a perpendicular wall. It was almost circular, and perfectly flat upon the top, apparently having the same kind of vegetation and timber upon its summit as that upon the ground below. I don't know that it is accessible; it seemed not; I saw no place, and did not attempt to ascend it.