ace of the earth, for, as
I have said, it is composed of several enormous rounded stone shapes,
like the backs of several monstrous kneeling pink elephants. At sixty
miles to the west its outline is astonishing. The highest point of
all, which is 1500 feet above the surrounding country, looked at from
here, presents the appearance of a gigantic pink damper, or Chinese
gong viewed edgeways, and slightly out of the perpendicular. We did
not return to the scene of our fight and our dinner, but went about
two miles northerly beyond it, when we had to take to the rough hills
again; we had to wind in and out amongst these, and in four miles
struck our outgoing tracks. We found the natives had followed us up
step by step, and had tried to stamp the marks of the horses' hoofs
out of the ground with their own. They had walked four or five
abreast, and consequently made a path more easy for us to remark. We
saw them raising puffs of smoke behind us, but did not anticipate any
more annoyance from them. We pushed on till dark, to the spot where we
had met them in the morning; here we encamped without water.

Before daylight I went for the horses, while Mr. Tietkens got the swag
and things ready to start away. I returned, tied up the horses, and we
had just begun to eat the little bit of damper we had for breakfast,
when Mr. Tietkens, whose nervous system seems particularly alive to
any native approach, gave the alarm, that our pursuers were again upon
us, and we were again saluted with their hideous outcries. Breakfast
was now a matter of minor import; instantly we slung everything on to
the horses, and by the time that was done we were again surrounded. I
almost wished we had only one of our rifles which we had left at home.
We could do nothing with such an insensate, insatiable mob of wretches
as these; as a novelist would say, we flung ourselves into our saddles
as fast as we could, and fairly gave our enemies the slip, through the
speed of our horses, they running after us like a pack of yelping
curs, in maddening bray. The natives ran well for a long distance,
nearly three miles, but the pace told on them at last and we
completely distanced them. Had we been unsuccessful in finding water
in this region and then met these demons, it is more than probable we
should never have escaped. I don't sigh to meet them again; the great
wonder was that they did not sneak upon and spear us in the night, but
the fact of our having a waterle