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
The bull, Mustara, behaved much better. He was a most affectionate
creature, and would kiss people all day long; but the Lord help any
one who would try to kiss the old cow, for she would cover them all
over with--well, we will call it spittle, but it is worse than that.
The calf would kiss also when caught, but did not care to be caught
too often. Mustara had a good heavy load--he followed the cow without
being fastened; the calf, with great cunning, not relishing the idea
of leaving Youldeh, would persistently stay behind and try and induce
his mother not to go on; in this he partially succeeded, for by dusk,
just as I found I had lost the pack-horse with the water, and was
waiting till Nicholls, who was following our horse tracks, came up to
us, we had travelled at no better speed than a mile an hour since we
left the camp. The two remaining horses were so restless that I was
compelled to stand and hold them while waiting, old Jimmy being away
in the darkness to endeavour to find the missing one. By the time
Nicholls arrived with the camels, guided now by the glare of a large
fire of a Mus conditor's nest which old Jimmy ignited, the horse had
been gone about two hours; thus our first night's bivouac was not a
pleasant one. There was nothing that the horses would eat, and if they
had been let go, even in hobbles, in all probability we should never
have seen them again. Old Jimmy returned after a fruitless search for
the absent horse. The camels would not feed, but lay down in a sulky
fit, the two horses continually snorting and endeavouring to break
away; and thus the night was passing away, when we heard the tinkle of
a bell--the horse we had lost having a bell on his neck--and Jimmy and
Nicholls went away through the darkness and scrubs in the direction it
proceeded from. I kept up a large fire to guide them, not that old
Jimmy required such artificial aid, but to save time; in about an hour
they returned with the missing horse. When this animal took it into
his head to bolt off he was out of earshot in no time, but it seems he
must have thought better of his proceedings, and returned of his own
accord to where he had left his mates. We were glad enough to secure
him again, and the water he carried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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