before me, gaze fixedly
into my face and generally say: "Mister Gile, when you get water?" I
pretended to laugh at the idea, and say. "Water? pooh! There's no
water in this country, Saleh. I didn't come here to find water, I came
here to die, and you said you'd come and die too." Then he would
ponder awhile, and say: "I think some camel he die to-morrow, Mr.
Gile." I would say: "No, Saleh, they can't possibly live till
to-morrow, I think they will all die to-night." Then he: "Oh, Mr.
Gile, I think we all die soon now." Then I: "Oh yes, Saleh, we'll all
be dead in a day or two." When he found he couldn't get any
satisfaction out of me he would begin to pray, and ask me which was
the east. I would point south: down he would go on his knees, and
abase himself in the sand, keeping his head in it for some time.
Afterwards he would have a smoke, and I would ask: "What's the matter,
Saleh? what have you been doing?" "Ah, Mr. Gile," was his answer, "I
been pray to my God to give you a rock-hole to-morrow." I said, "Why,
Saleh, if the rock-hole isn't there already there won't be time for
your God to make it; besides, if you can get what you want by praying
for it, let me have a fresh-water lake, or a running river, that will
take us right away to Perth. What's the use of a paltry rock-hole?"
Then he said solemnly, "Ah, Mr. Gile, you not religious."

On the eleventh day the plains died off, and we re-entered a new bed
of scrubs--again consisting of mallee, casuarinas, desert sandal-wood,
and quandong-trees of the same family; the ground was overgrown with
spinifex. By the night of the twelfth day from the dam, having daily
increased our rate of progress, we had traversed scrubs more
undulating than previously, consisting of the usual kinds of trees. At
sundown we descended into a hollow; I thought this would prove the bed
of another salt lake, but I found it to be a rain-water basin or very
large clay-pan, and although there were signs of the former presence
of natives, the whole basin, grass, and herbage about it, were as dry
as the desert around. Having found a place where water could lodge, I
was certainly disappointed at finding none in it, as this showed that
no rain whatever had fallen here, where it might have remained, when
we had good but useless showers immediately upon leaving the dam. From
the appearance of the vegetation no rains could possibly have visited
this spot for many months, if not years. The grass was whit