120 miles. Beyond Wynbring Jimmy
knew nothing whatever of the country, and I think he had a latent idea
in his mind that there really was nothing beyond it. The result of our
interview was, that I determined to send all the party back to
Fowler's Bay, except one white man and old Jimmy, also all the horses
except three, and to start with this small party and the camels to the
eastward on the following day. I selected Peter Nicholls to accompany
me. I found the boiling-point of water at the camp was 211 degrees
making its altitude above the sea 509 feet. The sandhills were about
100 feet high on the average.

The two camels and the calf, were sent to me by Sir Thomas Elder, from
Adelaide, while I was at Fowler's Bay, by an Afghan named Saleh
Mahomet, who returned to, and met me at, Beltana, by the ordinary way
of travellers. There was only a riding-saddle for the cow, the bull
having come bare-backed; I therefore had to invent a pack- or
baggage-saddle for him, and I venture to assert that 999,999 people
out of every million would rather be excused the task. In this work I
was ably seconded by Mr. Richards, who did most of the sewing and
pad-making, but Mr. Armstrong, one of the owners and manager of the
Fowler's Bay Station, though he supplied me in profusion with every
other requisite, would not let me have the size of iron I wished, and
I had to take what I could get, he thinking it the right size; and
unfortunately that which I got for the saddle-trees was not stout
enough, and, although in other respects the saddle was a brilliant
success, though made upon a totally different principle from that of
an Afghan's saddle, when the animal was loaded, the weakness of the
iron made it continually widen, and in consequence the iron pressed
down on the much-enduring creature's body and hurt him severely.

We frequently had to stop, take his load and saddle off and bend the
iron closer together again, so as to preserve some semblance of an
arch or rather two arches over his back, one before and one behind his
hump. Every time Nicholls and I went through this operation we were
afraid the iron would give, and snap in half with our pressure, and so
it would have done but that the fiery rays of the sun kept it almost
at a glowing heat. This and the nose ropes and buttons getting so
often broken, together with making new buttons from pieces of stick,
caused us many harassing delays.

On the 24th of March, 1875, we bade good-by