by the wind into parallel ridges of the height and frequency already described.  It will be readily understood, therefore, that we were not sorry to see the last of them!  Working our way step by step, we had so husbanded the marvellous powers of endurance of our camels that, in spite of the most terrible privations and difficulties, these noble animals had silently carried their loads day by day, up and down, over the burning sand, maddened by flies, their legs worn bare by spinifex—­carried them not without great sufferings and narrow escapes from death, but yet without one of their number succumbing to the horrors of the region.  Accident and poison had carried off four.  And now, alas! another was to meet the same fate.  Poor Satan, my faithful companion in good times and bad, whose soft velvet nose had so often rubbed my cheek in friendship, was laid low by the deadly wallflower.  In spite of all we could do for him, in spite of coaxing him yard by yard, Warri and I—­as we had done to Misery before—­for a day’s march of over fifteen miles, we were forced to leave him to die.  We could not afford to wait a day, always onward must it be until another water is found, so, with a bullet through his head, I left him to find his way to the Happy Hunting-grounds where there are no native wells nor spinifex, only flowing rivers and groves of quondongs!  All this about a camel—­“a devil and an ostrich and an orphan child in one,” as we have been told—­but remember that often in the solitary bush one’s animals are one’s only companions, that on them one’s life depends.  How, then, could one fail to love them as friends and comrades?

Shortly after the scene of Satan’s death the mulga clumps became greater in extent, until for half the day, and more, we wound our way through dense thickets.  The further South we went the thicker they became, until all day long we marched through scrub, seeing no more than forty yards ahead, with packs, saddles, and clothes torn to pieces by dead and broken branches.  We saw no smokes, no spinifex rats, no natives, no tracks but old ones, and these led us only to dry rock-holes.  Time after time we followed recent tracks from hole to hole, and met with no success; sometimes we were just in time to be too late, and to see that the last drops had been scraped up by the natives!

On June 6th we followed a fresh track, and found a hole containing thirty gallons.  June 7th and 8th, dense scrub.  June 9th, open country, lake country, gum tree flats, and magnificent green feed, the first we had seen since leaving Sturt Creek.  On our right high sandhills, whose butt-ends in the distance had the appearance of a range of hills; on our left thickets of mulga, and beyond, a sandstone range.  Kangaroo tracks were numerous, but none very fresh; these and the number of birds gave us hopes of water.  We must find some soon, or not one horse could survive.  Poor ponies! they were as thin as rakes, famished and hollow-eyed, their