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,.
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 stone came quietly and roused him, causing him to sit up.  Mr. Tietkens patted him, and he lay down again.  Immediately after another stone came, and up sat Cocky.  This aroused Mr. Tietkens’s curiosity, as he didn’t hear me speak to the dog, and he said, “Did you send Cocky a telegram?” I said, “No.”  “Well then,” said he, “somebody did twice:  did you, Jimmy?” “No.”  “Oh!” I exclaimed, “it’s those blacks!” We jumped up and looked at the low rocks behind us, where we saw about half-a-dozen sidling slowly away behind them.  Jimmy ran on top, but they had all mysteriously disappeared.  We kept a sharp look out after this, and fired a rifle off two or three times, when we heard some groans and yells in front of us up the creek gorge.

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