The next morning, with the help of the glasses, we could see several black figures moving about on the sloping foot of the cliffs, and therefore steered in their direction.  Our mad friend had to be accommodated on the top of a camel, as he refused to walk or move, and I wished to leave him with friends, or at any rate with fellow-countrymen, though we no longer required his services as guide, in which capacity he had been singularly useless.  Five miles brought us to the hills, and close on to the natives’ camp whose fire we had seen, before they discovered us; when they did so they fled, seven or eight of them, and hid in caves in the sandstone.  We had now been only four days since the last water, but the weather was so hot, feed so scarce, and so much ground burnt and dusty, that it was time we gave the camels another drink if we wished to keep them in any sort of condition.  From the native camp a few tracks led round a corner of rock; these I followed, with the camels coming behind, and soon saw two small native wells sunk in the sand and debris, held in a cleft in the rock.  Nothing but bare rock rose all round, and on this we made camp, turning the camels out at the foot of the cliffs where a few bushes grew.

Godfrey and Warri meanwhile had followed the blacks into the caves, and now returned with two of the finest men I have seen in the interior.  One, a boy, apparently about eighteen years old, splendidly formed and strongly built, standing nearly six feet high; the other a man of mature years, not so tall but very broad and well-made.  The boy had no hair on his face, the man a short beard and moustaches, and both had a far better cast of features than any I have seen further south.  Their skin, too, instead of being black, was a shining reddish-brown colour; this was perhaps produced by red ochre and grease rubbed in, but in any case it gave them a finer appearance.  Both were quite without clothing or ornament, nor did I notice any of the usual scars upon their bodies; their well-fed frames made us hope that a change in the country was close at hand.

These natives showed no fear or surprise when once in the camp, and, examining our packs and saddles, sat “jabbering” away quite contented, until Breaden struck a match to light his pipe.  This so alarmed them that they bolted.  We did not attempt to stop the boy, but detained the man, as I wished for further information about waters, and was also anxious to study his habits.  He had evidently been in touch with blacks from settled parts, for he knew the words, “white-fella” and “womany,” and had certainly heard of a rifle, for on my picking one up and holding it towards him he trembled with fear, and it was some time before his confidence in us was restored.  He really was a most intelligent man, both amusing and interesting, and by signs and pantomime, repeated over and over again until he saw that we guessed his meaning, he told us many things.  Plenty of women, old and young, were camped in one direction, and were specially worth a visit; he knew of several watering-places, in one of which we could bathe and stand waist-deep.  So I made a compact that as soon as he showed us this wonderful “Yowie” (his word for water) he should go free.  He seemed perfectly to understand this.  Our mad friend he hardly deigned to notice, and pointed at him in a most contemptuous way.