Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated, eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 723 pages of information about Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated,.

Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated, eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 723 pages of information about Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated,.
they do, and don’t you go biting any of them again.”  Jimmy of course, my reader can see, was a queer young fellow.  On one occasion further back, a good many crows were about, and they became the subject of discussion.  I remarked, “I’ve travelled about in the bush as much as most people, and I never yet saw a little crow that couldn’t fly;” then Jimmy said, “Why, when we was at the Birthday, didn’t I bring a little crow hin a hague hin?” I said, “What’s hin a hague hin?” To which he replied, “I didn’t say “hin a hague hin,” I says “Hand her hague hin.”  After this, whenever we went hunting for water, and found it, if there was a sufficient quantity for us we always said, “Oh, there’s enough to boil a hague in anyhow.”  Late in the evening of the next day, Jimmy and I were watching at the tank for pigeons, when the three horses Mr. Tietkens took away came up to drink; this of course informed me they had returned.  The horses looked fearfully hollow, and I could see at a glance that they could not possibly have had any water since they left.  Mr. Tietkens reported that no water was to be got anywhere, and the country to the west appeared entirely waterless.

I was, however, determined to make one more attempt.  Packing two horses with water, I intended to carry it out to the creek, which is forty miles from here.  At that point I would water one horse, hang the remainder of the water in a tree, and follow the creek channel to see what became of it.  I took Gibson and Jimmy, Mr. Tietkens remaining at the camp.  On arriving at the junction of the larger creek, we followed down the channel and in five miles, to my great surprise, though the traveller in these regions should be surprised at nothing, we completely ran the creek out, as it simply ended among triodia, sandhills, and scrubby mulga flats.  I was greatly disappointed at this turn of affairs, as I had thought from its size it would at least have led me to some water, and to the discovery of some new geographical features.  Except where we struck it, the country had all been burnt, and we had to return to that spot to get grass to camp at.  Water existed only in the bags which we carried with us.  I gave the horse I intend riding to-morrow a couple of buckets of water.  I suppose he would have drank a dozen—­the others got none.  The three of us encamped together here.

CHAPTER 2.5.  FROM 9TH NOVEMBER TO 23RD DECEMBER, 1873.

Alone. 
Native signs. 
A stinking pit. 
Ninety miles from water. 
Elder’s Creek. 
Hughes’s Creek. 
The Colonel’s range. 
Rampart-like range. 
Hills to the north-east. 
Jamieson’s range. 
Return to Fort Mueller. 
Rain. 
Start for the Shoeing Camp once more. 
Lightning Rock. 
Nothing like leather. 
Pharaoh’s inflictions. 
Photophobists. 
Hot weather. 
Fever and philosophy. 
Tietkens’s tank. 
Gibson taken ill. 
Mysterious disappearance of water. 

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Australia Twice Traversed, Illustrated, from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.