Horseshoe Bend, 28 miles from Crown Point. Mostly sand; very little riding. Here is a depôt and accommodation (meal-providing) house.
The depôt is picturesquely situated in a sharp bend of the Finke River. Rugged hills show up on all sides. In front, by the river's side, a well; and in the sandy bed itself, many nearly permanent soakages delight the casual traveller.
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Here it was that one of the encamped blacks on spying me rushed helter-skelter to the storekeeper to breathlessly inform him that whitefellow come along ridin' big one mosquito.
Previously blackfellows had described the bicycle as a "piccaninny engine." "Big pfeller engine come alonga bime-bye, I suppose?" questioned the blackfellow, having in mind a Transcontinental railway doubtless. "One-side buggy" had also been a native's not inapt description of the novel vehicle.
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The blacks (always camped near-by wherever white men linger) are of great help to the whites in dealing with horses and cattle. Their cleverness at tracking is well known. An illustration, out of the way.
At one of the very few houses between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs the proprietor brought three cats—three of about a like size—into the back room; told me the various names by which they were called to breakfast, and then requested me to drop one of them—any one of them I chose—through the window. I did so to humour him, and off scampered pussy to a brush-shed over the way. Going outside, after shutting the window and locking the room door, the "boss" called loudly for "Billy." From the further side of the stock-yard's fence came a blackfellow.
"What name that fellow cat make it tracks?" the "boss" said, pointing to the very faintest marks.
A moment's scrutiny, and the blackfellow replied "That one Nelly me think it." And he was right.