On the 6th October, as I have said, we departed, and at once entered into the second division of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's great Australian desert. That night we camped at the place where Mr. Tietkens and Alec Ross, albeit a short measure for twenty-five miles, had left the two troughs full of water. I had instructed them to travel west-north-west. The country of course was all scrubs and sandhills. We saw a few currajong-trees during our day's stage, and where we camped there were a number of well-grown eucalyptus-trees with yellow bark. These seemed to me very like the yellow jacket timber that grows on watercourses in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. The water I had sent out to this place was just sufficient to fill up the camels. The following day, at three miles from the camp, we came to some large granite boulders in the scrubs; but there were no receptacles for holding water at any time. At sixteen miles we reached a dry salt lake on our left hand; this continued near our line for four miles. Both yesterday and to-day we saw some native wallaby traps in the dense scrubs; these are simply long lines of sticks, boughs, bushes, etc., which, when first laid down, may be over a foot high; they are sometimes over a quarter of a mile long. These lines meet each other at nearly right angles, and form a corner. For a few yards on each side of the corner the fence is raised to between four and five feet, made somewhat substantial and laid with boughs. Over this is thrown either a large net or a roofing of boughs. I saw no signs of nets in this region. The wallaby are hunted until they get alongside the fences; if they are not flurried they will hop along it until they get to a part which is too high, or they think it is; then they go up into the trap, where there is a small opening, and get knocked on the head for their pains by a black man inside. At twenty miles we actually sighted a low hill. Here was a change. At four miles farther we reached its foot; there were salt lake depressions nearly all round us. Here we found a small quantity of the little pea-vetch, which is such excellent food for the camels.
From the summit of this little hill, the first I had met for nearly 800 miles—Mount Finke was the last—another low scrubby ridge lay to the westward, and nearly across our course, with salt lakes intervening, and others lying nearly all round the horizon. At the foot of the little hill we encamped. A few hundred acres of ground were open, and there were clay-pans upon it, but no rain could have fallen here for ages I should imagine. The hill was only 200 feet high, and it was composed of granite stones. I was glad, however, to see some granite crop out, as we were now approaching the western coast-line formation; this I have always understood to be all granite, and it was about time that something like a change of country should occur. The following day, in making for the low range, we found ourselves caught in the ramifications of some of the saline depressions, and had to go a long way round to avoid them. Just before we reached the low range we passed the shore of another salt lake, which had a hard, firm, and quartz-pebbly bed, and we were enabled to travel across it to the hills; these we reached in sixteen miles from our last camp. The view from the summit was as discouraging as ever. To the west appeared densely scrubby rises, and to the south many salt channels existed, while in every other direction scrubs and scrubby rises bounded the view. This low range was about 300 feet high; the ridges beyond continued on our course, a little north of west for two or three miles, when we again entered the sandy scrubs, and camped, after travelling twenty-eight miles. Our position here was in latitude 30° 10´ 5´´, and longitude 122° 7´ 6´´. The next day we had scrubs undulating as usual, and made a day's stage of twenty-four miles, sighting at twelve miles three low ranges, northerly, north-easterly, and east-north-easterly, the most easterly appearing to be the highest. They were from twenty to thirty miles away from our line.
On the 9th and 10th October we had all scrubs; on the 11th, towards evening, we had some scrubby ridges in front of us, and were again hemmed in by salt lakes. To save several miles of roundabout travelling, we attempted to cross one of these, which, though not very broad, was exceedingly long to the north and south, and lay right across our track. Unfortunately a number of the leading camels became apparently hopelessly embedded in a fearful bog, and we had great difficulty in getting them safely out. It was only by the strenuous exertions of all hands, and by pulling up the camels' legs with ropes, and poking tarpaulins into the vacated holes, that we finally rescued them without loss. We then had to carry out all their loads ourselves, and also the huge and weighty pack-saddles. We found it no easy matter to carry 200 pounds, half a load—some of the water-casks weighed more—on our backs, when nearly up to our necks in the briny mud, on to the firm ground. However, we were most fortunate in having no loss with the camels, for a camel in a bog is the most helpless creature imaginable. Leaving the bog, we started up the shore of the lake, northerly, where we found some more of the little pea-vetch, and encamped, making only twenty-four miles straight from last camp. The camels have had nothing to eat for three nights previously. We saw some natives' smoke three or four miles away from where we camped, and as there were ridges near it, I intend to send some one there in the morning to look for water.
We had still some miles to go, to get round the northern end of the boggy lake. Alec Ross and Tommy walked across, to hunt up any traces of natives, etc., and to look for water. On clearing this boggy feature, we ascended into some densely scrubby granite rises; these had some bare rocks exposed here and there, but no indentations for holding water could be seen. At fifteen or sixteen miles, having passed all the ridges, and entered scrubs and mallee again, Alec and Tommy overtook us, Mr. Young having remained behind with their camels, and reported that they had found one small rock-hole. Alec said it had twenty or thirty gallons of water in it, but Tommy said there was only a little drop, so I did not think it worth while to delay by sending any camels back so far for so little reward. We saw two or three dozen grass-trees to-day, also some quandong and currajong trees, and camped again in scrubs where there was only a few leguminous bushes for the camels to eat. We had travelled twenty-eight miles, which only made twenty-four straight. The last three days had been warm, the thermometer going up to 98° in the shade each day at about twelve o'clock; the camels were very thirsty, and would not feed as the provender was so very poor.
During the last few days we had met with occasional patches of grassy and clayey ground, generally where the yellow-barked eucalypts grew, and we passed numerous small clay-channels and pans, in which rain-water might lodge for some time after a shower, but it was evident from the appearance of the grass and vegetation that no rains could have visited the region for a year, or it might be for a hundred years; every vegetable thing seemed dry, sere, or dead. On the 13th of October, at twelve miles from camp, we passed over some more scrubby granite ridges, where some extent of bare rock lay exposed. I searched about it, but the indents were so small and shallow that water could not remain in them for more than a week after rains had filled them. While I was searching on foot, Mr. Young and Tommy, from their camels' backs, saw another mass of bare rocks further away to the north-west. I took Tommy with me, on Reechy, and we went over to the spot, while the party continued marching on; on arriving we found a very pretty piece of scenery. Several hundred acres of bare rocks, with grassy flats sloping down from them to the west, and forming little watercourses or flat water-channels; there were great numbers of crows, many fresh natives' tracks, and the smoke of several fires in the surrounding scrub. Tommy took the lower ground, while I searched the rocks. He soon found a small native well in a grassy water-channel, and called out to me. On joining him I found that there was very little water in sight, but I thought a supply might be got with a shovel, and I decided to send him on my camel to bring the party back, for we had come over 200 miles from Queen Victoria's Spring, and this was the first water I had seen since leaving there. We gave little Reechy, or as I usually called her Screechy, all the water we could get out of the well, with one of Tommy's boots; she drank it out of his hat, and they started away. I fully believed there was more water about somewhere, and I intended having a good hunt until either I found it or the party came. I watched Tommy start, of course at full speed, for when he got a chance of riding Screechy he was in his glory, and as she was behind the mob, and anxious to overtake them, she would go at the rate of twenty miles an hour, if allowed to gallop; but much to my surprise, when they had gone about 200 yards along the grassy water-channel, apparently in an instant, down went Reechy on her knees, and Tommy, still in the saddle, yelled out to me, “Plenty water here! plenty water here!” Reechy, who had not had half enough at the first place, would not go past this one.
I walked down and saw a large well with a good body of water in it, evidently permanently supplied by the drainage of the mass of bare rocks in its vicinity. I was greatly pleased at Tommy's discovery, and after giving Reechy a thorough good drink, off he went like a rocket after the party. I wandered about, but found no other water-place; and then, thinking of the days that were long enough ago, I sat in the shade of an umbrageous acacia bush. Soon I heard the voices of the angels, native black and fallen angels, and their smokes came gradually nearer. I thought they must have seen me on the top of the rocks, and desired to make my further acquaintance. The advancing party, however, turned out to be only two women coming for water to the well. They had vessels, usually called coolamins—these are small wooden troughs, though sometimes made of bark, and are shaped like miniature canoes—for carrying water to their encampment. When they came near enough to see what I was, they ran away a short distance, then stopped, turned round, and looked at me. Of course I gave a gentle bow, as to something quite uncommon; a man may bend his lowest in a desert to a woman. I also made signs for them to come to the well, but they dropped their bark coolamins and walked smartly off. I picked up these things, and found them to be of a most original, or rather aboriginal, construction. They were made of small sheets of the yellow-tree bark, tied up at the ends with bark-string, thus forming small troughs. When filled, some grass or leaves are put on top of the water to prevent it slopping over. The women carry these troughs on their heads. I was not near enough to distinguish whether the women were beautiful or not; all I could make out was that one was young and fatter than the other. Amongst aborigines of every clime fatness goes a great way towards beauty. The youngest and fattest was the last to decamp.
These were the first natives I had seen upon this expedition; no others appeared while I was by myself. In about four hours the party arrived; they had travelled six miles past the place when Tommy overtook them. We soon watered all the camels; they were extremely thirsty, for they had travelled 202 miles from Queen Victoria's Spring, although, in a straight line, we were only 180 miles from it. Almost immediately upon the arrival of the caravan, a number of native men and one young boy made their appearance. They were apparently quiet and inoffensive, and some of them may have seen white people before, for one or two spoke a few English words, such as “white fellow,” “what name,” “boy,” etc. They seemed pleased, but astonished to see the camels drink such an enormous quantity of water; they completely emptied the well, and the natives have probably never seen it empty before. The water drained in pretty fast: in an hour the well was as full as ever, and with much purer water than formerly. There was plenty of splendid herbage and leguminous bushes here for the camels. It is altogether a most romantic and pretty place; the little grassy channels were green and fresh-looking, and the whole space for a mile around open, and dotted with shady acacia trees and bushes. Between two fine acacias, nearly under the edge of a huge, bare expanse of rounded rock, our camp was fixed. The slope of the whole area is to the west.
It reminded me of Wynbring more than any other place I have seen. At first only eight natives made their appearance, and Mr. Young cut up a red handkerchief into as many strips. These we tied around their regal brows, and they seemed exceedingly proud of themselves. Towards evening three or four more came to the camp; one had a large piece of pearl oyster-shell depending from a string round his neck, another had a queer ornament made of short feathers also depending from the neck; it looked like the mouth of a porte-monnaie. When I wished to examine it, the wearer popped it over his mouth, and opened that extensive feature to its fullest dimensions, laughing most heartily. He had a very theatrical air, and the extraordinary mouthpiece made him look like a demon in, or out of, a pantomime. In taking this ornament off his neck he broke the string, and I supplied him with a piece of elastic band, so that he could put it on and off without undoing it, whenever he pleased; but the extraordinary phenomenon to him of the extension of a solid was more than he was prepared for, and he scarcely liked to allow it to touch his person again. I put it over my head first, and this reassured him, so that he wore it again as usual. They seemed a very good-natured lot of fellows, and we gave them a trifle of damper and sugar each. During the morning, before we arrived here, Tommy had been most successful in obtaining Lowans' eggs, and we had eleven or twelve with us. When the natives saw these, which no doubt they looked upon as their own peculiar and lawful property, they eyed them with great anxiety, and, pointing to them, they spoke to one another, probably expecting that we should hand the eggs over to them; but we didn't do it. At night they went away; their camp could not be far off, as we continually heard the sounds of voices and could see their camp fires. Before sunrise the following morning the mercury fell to 32°; although there was no dew to freeze, to us it appeared to be 100° below zero. The only animals' tracks seen round our well were emus, wild dogs, and Homo sapiens. Lowans and other desert birds and marsupials appear never to approach the watering-places.
Our sable friends came very early to breakfast, and brought a few more whom we had not previously seen; also two somewhat old and faded frail, if not fair, ones; soon after a little boy came by himself. This young imp of Satan was just like a toad—all mouth and stomach. It appeared these natives practise the same rites of incision, excision, and semi-circumcision as the Fowler's Bay tribes; and Tommy, who comes from thence, said he could understand a few words these people spoke, but not all; he was too shy to attempt a conversation with them, but he listened to all they said, and occasionally interpreted a few of their remarks to us. These principally referred to where he could have come from and what for. To-day Alec Ross and Peter Nicholls walked over to the natives' encampment, and reported that most of the men who had been to our camp were sitting there with nothing to eat in the camp; the women being probably out on a hunting excursion, whilst they, as lords of creation, waited quietly at their club till dinner should be announced. They got very little from me, as I had no surplus food to spare. Nicholls told me they had some tin billies and shear-blades in the camp, and I noticed that one of the first batch we saw had a small piece of coarse cloth on; another had a piece of horse's girth webbing. On questioning the most civilised, and inquiring about some places, whose native names were given on my chart, I found they knew two or three of these, and generally pointed in the proper directions. It was evident they had often seen white people before, if, they had never eaten any.
One of our cow camels had been very lame for two or three days, and now we found she had a long mulga stake stuck up through the thick sole of her spongy foot. I got a long piece out with knife and plyers, but its removal did not appear to improve her case, for the whole lower part of her leg was more swollen after than before the extraction of the wood, but I hoped a day or two would put her right. Yesterday, the 15th of October, Mr. Young managed to get the name of this place from the natives. They call it Ularring, with the accent on the second syllable. It is a great relief to my mind to get it, as it saves me the invidious task of selecting only one name by which to call the place from the list of my numerous friends. This morning, 16th, our usual visitors arrived; two are most desirous to go westward with us when we start. A little later a very pretty little girl came by herself. She was about nine or ten years old, and immediately became the pet of the camp. All the people of this tribe are excessively thin, and so was this little creature. She had splendid eyes and beautiful teeth, and we soon dressed her up, and gave her a good breakfast. In an hour after her arrival she was as much at home in my camp as though I were her father. She is a merry little thing, but we can't understand a word she says. She evidently takes a great interest in everything she sees at the camp, but she didn't seem to care to look at herself in a glass, though the men always did.