What a pretty ending to my journey this! My bicycle, it would almost seem, had carried into execution the little poetical thing in the way of existence-endings I had contemplated vaguely a while back—had wheeled itself out into the undesecrated old forest, and vanished from mortal ken.
I found it—of course somewhere, and within half an hour.
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The watercourse this hole or pond was in, came into view occasionally until Daly Waters telegraph station was reached. Ergo it must have been the Daly Creek. It, like all the watercourses beyond the Burt, has its fall towards the north to join the coastal rivers. Ergo, again, the country running northward from the Burt must have its fall towards the coast.
The buildings at Daly Waters are on the south bank of the winding creek, and, being erected on piles, stand two feet or more above the ground—not, because of floods, though, for this bank is well above the plains but to mitigate the white ant evil.
All the way up from the MacDonnell Ranges, ant-hills had ever figured more or less prominently. Oftentimes fantastically-shaped groupings of them had been mistaken for men or animals. They had been gradually increasing in average size, until here at Daly Waters, or a few miles on, they rose as high as the sag in the telegraph wire.
It had already been told me that between Pine Creek (258 miles from Daly Waters) and Palmerston (146 miles still further on) the railway line in many places deviated to save the cost and labour of cutting through the ant-hills, so large and of such very tough material were they fashioned there. I was always very grateful for scraps of information like this.
Daly Waters seemed nearly as good as the end of the journey; for at the Katherine River (only 190 miles on) there was a hotel, and this meant civilization and perhaps a township. At the telegraph station two or three days were spent. Residing there, besides the stationmaster, were an assistant, and a Chinaman cook. Many natives were camped in the neighborhood, and they, or occasionally a handy Chinaman, got the "odd jobs" of the station to do.
Here, as at every other place of call, the tinkling of the meal bell fell on my ears sweetly as heavenly music. Music with words, too, learned from a blackfellow, who thus pithily interpreted the ringing—"Chow-chow, quick fella, come on now."
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