erts. While encamped here we found Youldeh to be a
fearful place, the ants, flies, and heat being each intolerable. We
were at the bottom of a sandy funnel, into which the fiery beams of
the sun were poured in burning rays, and the radiation of heat from
the sandy country around made it all the hotter. Not a breath of air
could be had as we lay or sat panting in the shade we had erected with
our tarpaulins. There was no view for more than a hundred yards
anywhere, unless one climbed to the top of a sandhill, and then other
sandhills all round only were to be seen. The position of this place I
found to be in latitude 30 degrees 24' 10" and approximate longitude
131 degrees 46'. On the 23rd of March Mr. Murray, Jimmy, and I, went
to the top of a sandhill overlooking the camp and had a long
confabulation with Jimmy--at least Mr. Murray had, and he interpreted
the old fellow's remarks to me. It appeared that he knew the country,
and some watering-places in it, for some distance to the eastward, and
on making a kind of map on the sand, he put down several marks, which
he called by the following names, namely, Chimpering, Pylebung,
Mowling, Whitegin, and Wynbring; of these he said Pylebung and
Wynbring were the best waters. By his account they all lay due east
from hence, and they appeared to be the most wonderful places in the
world. He said he had not visited any of these places since he was a
little boy with his mother, and it appeared his mother was a widow and
that these places belonged to her country, but that she had
subsequently become the wife of a Fowler's Bay native, who had taken
her and her little Jimmy away out of that part of the country,
therefore he had not been there since. He said that Pylebung was a
water that stood up high, and that Cockata black fellows had made it
with wooden shovels. This account certainly excited my curiosity, as I
had never seen anything which could approximate to Jimmy's
description; he also said it was mucka pickaninny, only big one, which
meant that it was by no means a small water. Chimpering and Whitegin,
he said, were rock-holes, but Wynbring, the farthest water he knew,
according to his account was something astounding. He said it was a
mountain, a waterhole, a lake, a spring, and a well, all in one, and
that it was distant about six sleeps from Youldeh; this, according to
our rendering, as Jimmy declared also that it was mucka close up, only
long way, we considered to be about