and how their nose-ropes should
be adjusted, we could not prevent the little brute from tearing the
button clean through the cartilage of the poor old cow's nose; this
not only caused the animal frightful pain, but made her more obstinate
and stubborn and harder to get along than before. The agony the poor
creature suffered from flies must have been excruciating, as after
this accident they entered her nostrils in such numbers that she often
hung back, and would cough and snort until she had ejected a great
quantity of blood and flies from her nose.

For the last few miles we had not been annoyed by quite so much
spinifex as usual, but the vast amount of dead wood and underbrush was
very detrimental to the progress of the camels, who are not usually in
the habit of lifting their feet very high, though having the power,
they learn it in time, but not before their toes got constantly
entangled with the dead sticks, which made them very sore.

The scrub here and all the way we had come consisted mostly of mallee
(Eucalyptus dumosa) mulga, prickly bushes (hakea), some
grevillea-trees, and a few oaks (casuarinas). This place, Whitegin,
was eighty-five miles straight from Youldeh; we had, however,
travelled about 100 miles to reach it, as Jimmy kept turning and
twisting about in the scrubs in all directions. On leaving Whitegin we
travelled several degrees to north of east, the thermometer in the
shade while we rested there going up to 103 degrees. Jimmy said the
next place we should get water at was Wynbring, and from what we could
make out of his jargon, he seemed to imply that Wynbring was a large
watercourse descending from a mountain and having a stony bed; he also
said we were now close up, and that it was only a pickaninny way.
However, the shades of night descended upon us once more in the scrubs
of this desert, and we were again compelled to encamp in a place
lonely, and without water, amidst the desolations of this
scrub-enthroned tract. Choking with thirst and sleepless with anxiety,
we pass the hours of night; no dews descend upon this heated place,
and though towards dawn a slightly cooler temperature is felt, the
reappearance of the sun is now so near, that there has been no time
for either earth or man to be benefited by it. Long before the sun
himself appears, those avant-couriers of his fiery might, heated glow,
and feverish breeze, came rustling through the foliage of the
mallee-trees, which give out the