Leaving Cutmore’s, I struck through the bush, and before long the sickness I had had on me for some time past, developed into a raging fever.  Every bone in my body ached and shot with pain.  I could neither ride nor walk for more than a few minutes at a stretch; I was unable to eat, nor cared to drink the hot water in my canteen.  I struggled on, now riding, now walking, and now resting under a bush, travelling in this fashion as long as daylight lasted, from five in the morning until six at night.  Afraid to let the camels go at night lest they should wander too far, or, while I was following them in the morning, my packs should be raided by the blacks, I tied them down, one on either side of my blankets; and thus I had not only a protection against the wind, but the pleasure of their companionship—­no slight blessing in that solitude.

How lonely I felt, in that vast uninhabited bush!  Racked by pain, I tossed from side to side, until sheer weariness kept me still; so still that the silence of death seemed to have fallen upon us; there was not a sound in all that sea of scrub, save the occasional sleepy grunt of one of the camels, until the quiet night re-echoed with the hoarse call of the “Mopoke,” which seemed to be vainly trying to imitate the cheerful notes of the cuckoo.  How could any note be true in such a spot! or how could a dry-throated bird he anything but hoarse!  At last morning came, heralded by the restless shuffling of the camels, and another day’s journey began.

Tying the camels down at nights necessitated the cutting of scrub and bushes for them to feed upon, and I doubt they got little enough to eat.  Before long I was too weak to lift the saddles off, and could only with difficulty load and unload the bags of quartz, and, weakened as I was by illness, my labours were not light.  Yet further trouble was in store for me, for presently a salt lake barred my way.  Then I began to understand the meaning of the word despair.  Neither kindness or cruelty would induce my camels to cross; I was therefore forced to follow the banks of the lake, hoping to get round it, as I could see what I supposed was its end.  Here I was again baffled by a narrow channel not ten yards wide.  It might as well have been half a mile, for all the chance I had of crossing it.  The trend of the lake was north-west by south-east, and I was now at the north-west end, but stopped, as I say, by a narrow channel connecting evidently with another lake further to the north-west.

There was nothing for it but to retrace my steps, and follow along the margin of the lake to the south-east, and eventually I got round, having been forced some ten miles out of my course.

I was fortunate in finding water without difficulty, in a small rock-hole amongst some granite hills in which “Granite Creek” takes its rise.  From these I had still eighty miles to travel before I could reach a settlement, Coongarrie (the 90 mile) being the nearest point.  Could I do it?  I had to succeed or perish miserably, and a man fights hard for his life.  So I struggled on day and night, stopping at frequent intervals from sheer exhaustion, cursing the pitiless sun, and praying for it to sink below the horizon.  Some twenty miles from Coongarrie I was relieved by striking a track, which did away with the necessity of thinking where I was going.