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
beyond it, I named the Schwerin Mural Crescent; and a pass through it
I named Vladimar Pass, in honour of Prince Vladimar, son of the
Emperor of Russia, married to the Princess of Schwerin. When we
reached the place where we first surprised the natives hunting, in
March, we made a more northerly detour, as our former line had been
through and over very rough hills, and in so doing we found on the 1st
of June another splendid watering-place, where several creeks joined
and ran down through a rocky defile, or glen, to the north. There was
plenty of both rock and sand water here, and it was a very pretty and
excellent little place. I called it Winter's* Glen, and the main creek
of the three in which it lies, Irving Creek. This water may easily be
found by a future traveller, from its bearing from a high,
long-pointed hill abruptly ending to the west, which I named Mount
Phillips. This is a very conspicuous mount in this region, being, like
many of the others named on this line, detached to allow watercourses
to pass northwards, and yet forming a part of the long northern wall,
of which the Petermann Range is formed. This mount can be distinctly
seen from Mount Olga, although it is seventy miles away, and from
whence it bears 4 degrees north of west. The water gorge at Winter's
Glen bears west from the highest point of Mount Phillips, and four
miles away. We were now again in the territories of South Australia,
having bid farewell to her sister state, and turned our backs upon
that peculiar province of the sun, the last of austral lands he shines
upon. We next paid a visit to Glen Robertson, of 15th March, as it was
a convenient place from which to make a straight line to the
Sugar-loaf. To reach it we had to make a circuitous line, under the
foot of the farthest east hill, where, it will be remembered, we had
been attacked during dinner-time. We reached the glen early. There was
yet another detached hill in the northern line, which is the most
eastern of the Petermann Range. I named it Mount McCulloch. It can
also easily be distinguished from Mount Olga. From Glen Robertson
Mount McCulloch bore 3 degrees east of north. We rested here a day,
during which several natives made their appearance and lit signal
fires for others. There is a great difference between signal and
hunting fires; we were perfectly acquainted with both, as my reader
may imagine. One aboriginal fiend, of the Homo sapiens genus, while we
were sitting down sewing bags as usual, sneaked so close upon us, down
the rocks behind the camp, that he could easily have touched or
tomahawked--if he had one--either of us, before he was discovered. My
little dog was sometimes too lazy to obey, when a little distance off,
the command to sit, or stand up; in that case I used to send him a
telegram, as I called it--that is to say, throw a little stone at him,
and up he would sit immediately. This sneak of a native was having a
fine game with us. Cocky was lying down near Mr. Tietkens, when a
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