ves.
Compelled to give up their plunder.
Natives assist at dinner.
Like banyan-trees.
A bad camping-place.
Natives accompany us.
Find the native well.
The Everard revisited.
Gruel thick and slab.
Well in the Ferdinand.
Rock-hole water.
Natives numerous and objectionable.
Mischief brewing.
A hunt for spears.
Attack frustrated.
Taking an observation.
A midnight foe.
The next morning.
Funeral march.
A new well.
Change of country.
Approaching the telegraph line.
The Alberga.
Decrepit native women.
The Neales.
Mount O'Halloran.
The telegraph line.
Dry state of the country.
Hann's Creek.
Arrival at the Peake.

On the 11th of June I was delighted to be able to be again upon the
move, and leave this detestable poisonous place and our fifteen-foot
shaft behind. Our only regret was that we had been compelled to remain
so long. The camels had nearly all been poisoned, some very much worse
than others; but all looked gaunt and hollow-eyed, and were
exceedingly weak and wretched, one remarkable exception being noticed
in Alec Ross's riding-cow, old Buzoe, who had either not eaten the
poison plant, or had escaped untouched by it. Our course was now east
by north, and as we got farther into the desert, I noticed that
occasionally some of the undulations of sand were crowned with stones,
wherever they came from. Where these stones crop up a growth of
timber, generally mulga, occurs with them. It is sandstone that tips
these rises. Some smokes of native fires were seen from our line of
march, in northerly and southerly directions, and occasionally the
footprints upon the sands, of some wandering child of the desert.
These were the only indications we could discover of the existence of
primordial man upon the scene. We passed a few grass-trees, which are
usually called "black boys" in almost every part of the continent
where they exist, and they seem to range over nearly the whole of
Australia, from Sydney to Perth, south of the Tropic. The camels were
so weak that to-day we could only accomplish about eighteen miles. At
five miles, on the following morning, we passed a hollow with some
mulga acacia in it. Near them Alec and I found a place where the
number of deserted huts, or gunyahs of the natives induced us to look
about for a well or some other kind of watering-place. An old well was
soon found, which was very shallow; the water was slightly brackish
and not more than three feet below the surface. How I wished I