h-house.
Gardens.
A journey northwards.
Pine-clad hills.
New line of ranges.
Return to depot.

The following day was Sunday, the 9th of November, but was not a day
of rest to any of us. Gibson and Jimmy started back with the
packhorses for the Shoeing Camp, while I intended going westward,
westward, and alone! I gave my horse another drink, and fixed a
water-bag, containing about eight gallons, in a leather envelope up in
a tree; and started away like errant knight on sad adventure bound,
though unattended by any esquire or shield-bearer. I rode away west,
over open triodia sandhills, with occasional dots of scrub between,
for twenty miles. The horizon to the west was bounded by open,
undulating rises of no elevation, but whether of sand or stone I could
not determine. At this distance from the creek the sandhills mainly
fell off, and the country was composed of ground thickly clothed with
spinifex and covered all over with brown gravel. I gave my horse an
hour's rest here, with the thermometer at 102 degrees in the shade.
There was no grass, and not being possessed of organs that could
digest triodia he simply rested. On starting again, the hills I had
left now almost entirely disappeared, and looked flattened out to a
long low line. I travelled over many miles of burnt, stony, brown,
gravelly undulations; at every four or five miles I obtained a view of
similar country beyond; at thirty-five miles from the creek the
country all round me was exactly alike, but here, on passing a rise
that seemed a little more solid than the others, I noticed in a kind
of little valley some signs of recent native encampments; and the
feathers of birds strewn about--there were hawks', pigeons', and
cockatoos' feathers. I rode towards them, and right under my horse's
feet I saw a most singular hole in the ground. Dismounting, I found it
was another of those extraordinary cups from whence the natives obtain
water. This one was entirely filled up with boughs, and I had great
difficulty in dragging them out, when I perceived that this orifice
was of some depth and contained some water; but on reaching up a drop,
with the greatest difficulty, in my hand, I found it was quite putrid;
indeed, while taking out the boughs my nasal horgin, as Jimmy would
call it, gave me the same information.

(ILLUSTRATION: THE STINKING PIT.)

I found the hole was choked up with rotten leaves, dead animals,
birds, and all imaginable sorts of filth. On poki