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
Time (and labour) accomplishes all things, and in time the last
animal's thirst was quenched, and the last drop of water sucked up
from every basin. I was afraid it would not be replenished by morning.
We had to encamp in the midst of a thicket of a kind of willow acacia
with pink bark all in little curls, with a small and pretty
mimosa-like leaf. This bush is of the most tenacious nature--you may
bend it, but break it won't. We had to cut away sufficient to make an
open square, large enough for our packs, and to enable us to lie down,
also to remove the huge bunches of spinifex that occupied the space;
then, when the stones were cleared away, we had something like a place
for a camp. By this time it was midnight, and we slept, all heartily
tired of our day's work, and the night being cool we could sleep in
comfort. Our first thought in the morning was to see how the basins
looked. Mr. Carmichael went up with a keg to discover, and on his
return reported that they had all been refilled in the night, and that
the trickling continued, but less in volume. This was a great relief
to my mind; I trust the water will remain until I return from those
dismal-looking mountains to the west. I made another search during the
morning for more water, but without success, and I can only conclude
that this water was permitted by Providence to remain here in this
lonely spot for my especial benefit, for no more rain had fallen here
than at any of the other hills in the neighbourhood, nor is this one
any higher or different from the others which I visited, except that
this one had a little water and all the rest none. In gratitude
therefore to this hill I have called it Mount Udor. Mount Udor was the
only spot where water was to be found in this abominable region, and
when I left it the udor had departed also. I got two of my
riding-horses shod to-day, as the country I intended to travel over is
about half stones and half scrub. I have marked a eucalyptus or
gum-tree in this gully close to the foot of the rock where I found the
water [EG/21], as this is my twenty-first camp from Chambers' Pillar.
My position here is in latitude 23 degrees 14', longitude 130 degrees
55', and variation 3 degrees east nearly. I could not start to-day as
the newly shod horses are so tender-footed that they seem to go worse
in their shoes; they may be better to-morrow. The water still holds
out. The camp is in a confined gully, and warm, though it is
comparatively a cool day. The grass here is very poor, and the horses
wander a great deal to look for feed. Four of them could not be found
in the morning. A slight thunderstorm passed over in the night, with a
sprinkling of rain for nearly an hour, but not sufficient fell to damp
a pocket-handkerchief. It was, however, quite sufficient to damp my
hopes of a good fall. The flies are very numerous here and
troublesome. After watering my two horses I started away by myself for
the ranges out west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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