ogs. Most of the teamsters knew Gibson, and expressed their
sorrow at his mishap; some of them also knew he was married.

The natives up the line had been very aggressive at the telegraph
stations, while we were absent, and all our firearms, etc., were
eagerly purchased, also several horses and gear. Mr. Frost fell in
love with Banks at a glance, and, though I tried not to part with the
horse, he was so anxious to buy him that I could not well refuse,
although I had intended to keep him and West Australian. Trew, one of
the best horses, had been staked early in the journey and his foot was
blemished, otherwise he was a splendid horse. All the best horses were
wanted--Diaway, Blackie, etc., but I kept W.A., Widge, and one or two
more of the best, as we still had several hundreds of miles to go.

When we parted from our friends we only had a few horses left. We
reached the Charlotte Waters about twelve o'clock on July 13th, having
been nearly a year absent from civilisation. Our welcome here by my
friend and namesake, Mr. Christopher Giles, was of the warmest, and he
clothed and fed us like a young father. He had also recovered and kept
my old horse Cocky. The whole of the establishment there, testified
their pleasure at our return. On our arrival at the Peake our
reception by Mr. and Mrs. Blood at the telegraph station was most
gratifying. Mr. John Bagot also supplied us with many necessaries at
his cattle-station. The mail contractor had a light buggy here, and I
obtained a seat and was driven by him as far as the Blinman Copper
Mine, via Beltana, where I heard that my black boy Dick had died of
influenza at a camp of the semi-civilised natives near a hill called
by Eyre, Mount Northwest. From the Blinman I took the regular mail
coach and train nearly 300 miles to Adelaide. Mr. Tietkens and Jimmy
came behind and sold the remaining horses at the Blinman, where they
also took the coach and joined me in Adelaide a week later.

I have now but a few concluding remarks to make; for my second
expedition is at an end, and those of my readers who have followed my
wanderings are perhaps as glad to arrive at the end as I was. I may
truly say that for nearly twelve months I had been the well-wrought
slave not only of the sextant, the compass, and the pen, but of the
shovel, the axe, and the needle also. There had been a continual
strain on brain and muscle. The leader of such an expedition as this
could not stand by and simply gi