ntly for our time. This place, as I said before, was
exceedingly hot, lying at the bottom of a hollow amongst the
sandhills, and all we could see from the tops of any of those near us
was a mass of higher, darker, and more forbidding undulations of a
similar kind. These undulations existed to the east, north, and west,
while to the south we could but dimly see the mirage upon the plain we
had recently traversed. The water here was fresh and sweet, and if the
temperature had not been quite so hot, we might have enjoyed our
encampment here; but there was no air, and we seemed to be at the
bottom of a funnel. The old black fellow, Jimmy, whom Mr. Richards had
obtained as a guide to show me some waters in the country to the
eastwards, informed us, through the interpretation of Mr. Murray, that
he knew of only one water in any direction towards the west, and this
he said was a small rock water-hole called Paring.

The following day Mr. Murray and I rode there with old Jimmy, and
found it to be a wretched little hole, lying nearly west-north-west
about fourteen miles away; it contained only a few gallons of water,
which was almost putrid from the number of dead and decaying birds,
rats, lizards, rotten leaves, and sticks that were in it; had it been
full it would have been of no earthly use to me. Old Jimmy was not
accustomed to riding, and got out of his latitude once or twice before
we reached the place. He was, however, proud of finding himself in the
novel position, albeit rather late in life, of riding upon horseback,
and if I remember rightly did not tumble off more than three or four
times during the whole day. Jimmy was a very agreeable old gentleman;
I could not keep up a conversation with him, as I knew so few words of
his language, and he knew only about twenty of mine. It was evident he
was a man of superior abilities to most of his race, and he looked
like a thoroughbred, and had always been known to Mr. Richards as a
proud and honourable old fellow. He was, moreover, the father of a
large family, namely five, which is probably an unprecedented number
amongst the aboriginal tribes of this part of Australia, all of whom
he had left behind, as well as his wife, to oblige me; and many a time
he regretted this before he saw them again, and after; not from any
unkindness on my part, for my readers will see we were the best of
friends the whole time we were together. On this little excursion it
was very amusing to watc