native camps put us on the alert, and presently we found a well—­a shallow hole, 7 feet deep, and 2 feet 6 inches in diameter, entirely surrounded by high spinifex.  Why there should ever be water there, or how the blacks got to know of it, was a problem we could only guess at.  Everything looked so dry and parched that we were in no way surprised at finding the well waterless.  Prempeh had been very unwell lately, refusing to take what little feed there was to be got.  A dose of sulphur and butter was administered, poured warm down his throat by me as Breaden held open his month, grasped firmly by either lip.  I believe sulphur is an excellent thing for camels, and used often to treat them to the mixture, some—­Satan, for example—­being very partial to it.  The position of this well I found to be lat. 25 degrees 15 minutes, long. 124 degrees 48 minutes; from the edge of the mulga, one hundred yards or so to the North of it, a range of rough looking hills is visible.  This I named the Browne Range, after my old friends at Bayley’s Reward, and the two conspicuous points I christened Mount Gordon, after Mr. Gordon Lyon, and Mount Everard, after Mr. Everard Browne, respectively.

Mount Gordon is flat-topped; and Mount Everard a double hill, a peak rising from a flat top, bears 82 degrees from the well.  This range stood out boldly from the open country and promised well for hilly country ahead.  Nor were we disappointed, for after two hours’ travel we sighted an imposing-looking range, and altered our course to the highest point, a queer dome-shaped peak, which we called Charlie’s Knob, since he had first seen the hills.  On nearer approach the hills lost much of their grandeur.  By camping-time we were close to their foot amongst rocky rises, very rough to the feet of our animals.  They were rewarded for their discomforts by a small patch of herbage which they quickly demolished.  That night we heard the dismal howling of two dingoes, who might either be giving expression to their satisfaction at finding water or to their disappointment at not having done so.  Three miles more of rugged ground the next morning brought us to Charlie’s Knob, and beyond it the range, which on close examination was not imposing, being a series of detached sandstone hills, their summits flat and slightly sloping to the South, capped with a hard reddish-brown rock (baked shale).  On the cap, loose fragments of shale and thick scrub; forming its sides sheer cliffs, at most fifteen feet high, perforated by holes and caves, above rough, stony banks.  The whole covered with tufts of spinifex, barren, wretched, and uninviting.