Formerly line-repairers were nearly always at work. Now most of the repairing is done but once a year, before or after the line has had its annual end-to-end inspection.
In the changed circumstances the overland telegraph stations are no longer chiefly depots for the use of those whose chief business it is to keep the line in efficient working order, but are mainly for the occupation of those whose duty it is to re-transmit messages from one repeating station to another, up or down. From Palmerston a "wire" is sent to Daly waters, repeated there, and received at Alice Springs; thence on to Hergott, and so to Adelaide. Or it may be re-transmitted first at Powell's Creek, next at Barrow's Creek, then at Charlotte Waters, and so on to Adelaide. One sequence of repeating stations operate through the night, the other throughout the day. At some—Alice Springs, for instance, the work goes on continuously.
The working of the line from Palmerston down to Attack Creek (between Powell's and Tennant's Creeks) is superintended from the north; the lower part, from Alice Springs.
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Half way between the Gilbert and Kelly's Well the track runs as a main street through the heart of a thickly populated city of spires, known as Little Edinboro'—a multitudinous array of ant hills, stretching out east and west far beyond the range of vision, and extending also some miles along the track.
There were fresh horse tracks near the well; and at the well itself, two white men, with their two or three black-boys, were camped, "spelling." An offer of hospitality was at once extended to me; and, as I had been three days and two nights without eating "white man's tucker," there was no hesitancy about the acceptance.
And it did not require much persuasion to induce me to camp here; for he who eats not, neither shall he feel much inclined to work.
"You'll not think I'm a beast, will you?" I said apologetically. "The fact is, I've eaten nothing for three days." But there is no need to apologise on the Overland.
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