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
Immediately around this singular monument of native industry, there
are a few hundred acres of very pretty country, beautifully grassed
and ornamented with a few mulga (acacia) trees, standing picturesquely
apart. The spot lies in a basin or hollow, and is surrounded in all
directions by scrubs and rolling sandhills. How we got to it I can
scarcely tell, as our guide kept constantly changing his course, so
that the compass was of little or no use, and it was only by the
sextant I could discover our whereabouts; by it I found we had come
fifty-eight miles from Youldeh on a bearing of south 68 degrees east,
we being now in latitude 30 degrees 43' and longitude 132 degrees 44'.
There was so little water here that I was unable to remain more than
one day, during which the thermometer indicated 104 degrees in the
shade.
To the eastward of this dam there was a sandhill with a few black oaks
(casuarinas) growing upon it, about a quarter of a mile away. A number
of stones of a calcareous nature were scattered about on it; on going
up this hill the day we rested the animals here, I was surprised to
find a broad path had been cleared amongst the stones for some dozens
of yards, an oak-tree at each end being the terminal points. At the
foot of each tree at the end of the path the largest stones were
heaped; the path was indented with the tramplings of many natives'
feet, and I felt sure that it was one of those places where the men of
this region perform inhuman mutilations upon the youths and maidens of
their tribe. I questioned old Jimmy about these matters, but he was
like all others of his race, who, while admitting the facts, protest
that they, individually, have never officiated at such doings.
Upon leaving Pylebung Jimmy informed me that Mowling was the next
watering-place, and said it lay nearly east from here; but I found we
went nearly north-east to reach it; this we did in seventeen miles,
the country through which we passed being, as usual, all sandhills and
scrub. Mowling consisted of a small acacia hollow, where there were a
few boulders of granite; in these were two small holes, both as dry as
the surface of the rocks in their vicinity. On our route from
Pylebung, we had seen the tracks of a single bullock; he also had
found his way to Mowling, and probably left it howling; but it must
have been some time since his visit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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