Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876Giles, Ernest
History
Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876
Giles, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
This morning I made the latitude of this pass to be 24 degrees 58',
and longitude 127 degrees 55'. We followed this creek; travelling
along its banks, we found native huts very numerous, and for a few
miles some sheets of water were seen; the bed then became too sandy;
its course was about north-west. In eight or nine miles we found that
sandhill and casuarina country existed, and swallowed up the
unfortunate creek. The main line of ranges continued westerly, and,
together with another range in front of us to the north, formed a kind
of crescent. No pass appeared to exist between them. I now went to the
eastern end of a range that lay to the north of us, and passing over a
low ridge had a good view of the surrounding country. Ranges appeared
in almost all directions; the principal ones lay to the west and
north-west. One conspicuous abrupt-faced mount bore north 17 degrees
east; this I named Mount Barlee. There were others to the
east-north-east, and the long sweep of the range from which we had
come to the south. One hill near us looked inviting, and we found a
deep rocky gorge with water in its neighbourhood. In fact there were
several fine rocky basins ten and twelve feet deep, though they were
very rough places to get horses to. I called the high hill Mount
Buttfield. It appeared as if no rain had fallen here lately; the water
in all these holes was greenish and stagnant, or stagning as Gibson
and Jimmy called it. The grass, such as there was, was old, white, and
dry. The country down below, north-wards, consisted of open, sandy,
level, triodia ground, dotted with a few clumps of the desert oak,
giving a most pleasing appearance to the eye, but its reality is
startlingly different, keeping, as it were, the word of promise to the
eye, but breaking it to the hope. While the horses were being
collected this morning I ascended Mount Buttfield, and found that
ranges continued to the west for a considerable distance. I now
decided to make for a notch or fall in the main range we had left,
which now bore nearly west, as there appeared to be a creek issuing
from the hills there. Travelling over casuarina sandhills and some
level triodia ground, we found there was a creek with eucalypts on it,
but it was quite evident that none of the late showers had fallen
there. Hardly any grass was to be found, the ground being open and
stony, with thorny vegetation.
In the main channel we could only find deep, rocky, dry basins, but up
a small branch gorge I found three small basins with a very limited
supply of water, not sufficient for my horses both now and in the
morning, so we thought it better that they should do without it
to-night. Above the camp there was a kind of pound, so we put all the
horses up there, as it was useless to let them ramble all over the
country in the night. The ants were excessively troublesome here. I
could not find sufficient shade for the thermometer to-day, but kept
it as cool as I could for fear of its bursting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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