We struck the road as expected, and, following it some five miles, came to a small, dry creek running down from a broken range of granite.  Sinking in its bed, we got a plentiful supply.  Mosquitoes are very rarely found in the interior, but on this little creek they swarmed, and could only be kept away by fires of sticks and grass, in the smoke of which we slept.

From the granite hills a fine view to the eastward was obtained, across a rich little plain of saltbush and grass, and dotted here and there over it was a native peach tree, or “quondong,” a species of sandalwood.  We had now left the timber behind us, its place being taken by a low, straggling scrub of acacia, generally known as “Mulga,” which continues in almost unbroken monotony for nearly two hundred miles; the only change in the landscape is where low cliffs of sandstone and ranges of granite, slate, or diorite, crop up, from which creeks and watercourses find their way into salt swamps and lakes; and occasional stretches of plain country.

Through these thickets we held on our course, passing various watering-places and rocks on the several roads leading to the then popular field of Mount Margaret.

All such rocks bear names given to them by travellers and diggers, though one can seldom trace the origin or author of the name, “Black Gin Soak,” “George Withers’ Hole,” “The Dead Horse Rocks,” and the “Donkey Rocks,” are fair samples.

It was at the last named that we had a slight entertainment in the shape of a camel-fight.  On arrival we found another camel-man (i.e., a man who prospects with camels instead of horses, not necessarily a camel-driver) in whose train was a large white bull.  Misery, with his usual precocity, at once began to show fight.  The owner of the white camel, a gentleman much given to “blowing,” warned me that his bull was the “strongest in the ——­ country,” and advised me to keep my camels away.  Anxious to see how Misery would shape in a genuine bout, I paid no heed, but took the precaution to remove his hobbles, thus placing him on equal terms with his older and stronger adversary.

Before very long they were at it hammer and tongs, roaring and grunting to the music of the bells on their necks; wrestling and struggling, using their great long necks as flails, now one down on his knees and almost turned over, and now the other, taking every opportunity of doing what damage they could with their powerful jaws, they formed a strange picture.  Misery was nearly exhausted, and the white bull’s master in triumph shouted, “Take ’em off, beat ’em off; your ——­ camel’ll be chewed up!” But no!  With a last expiring effort, brave little Misery dived his long neck under the body of his enemy, and grabbed his hind leg by the fetlock, when a powerful twist turned him over as neatly as could be.  It was now time for us to interfere before the white bull’s head was crushed by his conqueror’s knees and breast-bone.  With sticks and stones we drove him off, and the white bull retired abashed—­but not more so than his master.