uch
demoniacal yells greeted my ears as I had never heard before and do
not wish to hear again; the echoes of the voices of these now
indignant and infuriated creatures reverberating through the defiles
of the hills, and the uncouth sounds of the voices themselves smote so
discordantly on my own and my horse's ears that we went out of that
glen faster, oh! ever so much faster, than we went in. I heard a
horrid sound of spears, sticks, and other weapons, striking violently
upon the ground behind me, but I did not stop to pick up any of them,
or even to look round to see what caused it. Upon rejoining my
companions, as we now seldom spoke to one another, I merely told them
I had seen water and natives, but that it was hardly worth while to go
back to the place, but that they could go if they liked. Robinson
asked me why I had ridden my horse West Australian--shortened to W.A.,
but usually called Guts, from his persistent attention to his
"inwards"--so hard when there seemed no likelihood's of our getting
any water for the night? I said, "Ride him back and see." I called
this place Escape Glen. In two or three miles after I overtook them,
the Petermann became exhausted on the plains. We pushed on nearly
east, as now we must strike the Finke in forty-five to fifty miles;
but we had to camp that night without water. The lame horses went
better the farther they were driven. I hoped to travel the lameness
out of them, as instances of that kind have occurred with me more than
once. We were away from our dry camp early, and had scarcely proceeded
two miles when we struck the bank of a broad sandy-bedded creek, which
was almost as broad as the Finke itself: just where we struck it was
on top of a red bank twenty or thirty feet high. The horses naturally
looking down into the bed below, one steady old file of a horse, that
carried my boxes with the instruments, papers, quicksilver, etc., went
too close, the bank crumbled under him, and down he fell, raising a
cloud of red dust. I rode up immediately, expecting to see a fine
smash, but no, there he was, walking along on the sandy bed below, as
comfortable as he had been on top, not a strap strained or a box
shifted in the least. The bed here was dry. Robinson rode on ahead and
shortly found two fine large ponds under a hill which ended abruptly
over them. On our side a few low ridges ran to meet it, thus forming a
kind of pass. Here we outspanned; it was a splendid place. Carmichael