semblance of a mournful sigh, as
though they too suffered from the heat and thirst of this desolate
region, in which they are doomed by fate to dwell, and as though they
desired to let the wanderers passing amongst them know, that they also
felt, and were sorry for, our woes.

The morning of March 31st was exceedingly hot, the thermometer at dawn
standing at 86 degrees. We were up and after the camels and horses
long before daylight, tracking them by the light of burning torches of
great bunches and boughs of the mallee trees--these burn almost as
well green as dry, from the quantity of aromatic eucalyptic oil
contained in them--and enormous plots of spinifex which we lighted as
we passed.

Having secured all the animals, we started early, and were moving
onwards before sunrise. From Whitegin I found we had come on a nearly
north-east course, and at twenty-eight miles from thence the scrubs
fell off a trifle in height and density. This morning our guide
travelled much straighter than was usual with him, and it was evident
he had now no doubt that he was going in the right direction. About
ten o'clock, after we had travelled thirteen or fourteen miles, Jimmy
uttered an exclamation, pointed out something to us, and declared that
it was Wynbring. Then I could at once perceive how excessively
inaccurate, the old gentleman's account of Wynbring had been, for
instead of its being a mountain, it was simply a round bare mass of
stone, standing in the centre of an open piece of country, surrounded
as usual by the scrubs. When we arrived at the rock, we found the
large creek channel, promised us had microscopicated itself down to a
mere rock-hole, whose dimensions were not very great. The rock itself
was a bare expanse of granite, an acre or two in extent, and was
perhaps fifty feet high, while the only receptacle for water about it
was a crevice forty feet long, by four feet wide, with a depth of six
feet in its deepest part. The hole was not full, but it held an ample
supply for all our present requirements.

There were a few low sandhills near, ornamented with occasional
mulga-trees, and they made the place very pretty and picturesque.
There were several old and new native gunyahs, or houses, if such a
term can be applied to these insignificant structures. Australian
aborigines are a race who do not live in houses at all, but still the
common instincts of humanity induce all men to try and secure some
spot of earth which,