cks;
while others asserted that the hair grew all over their bodies, and
that they eat pickaninnies, and sometimes came eastward and killed any
of the members of the Charlotte tribe that they could find, and
carried off all the women they could catch. On the 12th we departed,
and my intended starting point being Chambers' Pillar, upon the Finke
River, I proceeded up the telegraph road as far as the crossing place
of the above-named watercourse, which was sixty miles by the road.

(ILLUSTRATION: CHAMBERS' PILLAR.)

In the evening of the day we encamped there, a Government party, under
the charge of Mr. McMinn, surveyor, and accompanied by Mr. Harley
Bacon, a son of Lady Charlotte Bacon, arrived from the north, and we
had their company at the camp. Close to this crossing-place a large
tributary joins the Finke near the foot of Mount Humphries. On the
following day Mr. McMinn, Mr. Bacon, and I rode up its channel, and at
about twelve miles we found a water-hole and returned. The country
consisted chiefly of open sandhills well grassed. I mentioned
previously that from Port Augusta, northwards and north-westwards, the
whole region consists of an open stony plateau, upon which mountain
ranges stand at various distances; through and from these, a number of
watercourses run, and, on a section of this plateau, nearly 200 miles
in extent, the curious mound-springs exist. This formation, mostly of
limestone, ceases at, or immediately before reaching, the Finke, and
then a formation of heavy red sandhills begins. Next day our friends
departed for the Charlotte, after making me several presents. From Mr.
McMinn I obtained the course and distance of the pillar from our camp,
and travelling on the course given, we crossed the Finke three times,
as it wound about so snake-like across the country. On the 22nd we
encamped upon it, having the pillar in full view.

(ILLUSTRATION: THE Moloch horridus.)

The appearance of this feature I should imagine to be unique. For a
detailed account of it my reader must consult Stuart's report.
Approaching the pillar from the south, the traveller must pass over a
series of red sandhills, covered with some scrubs, and clothed near
the ground with that abominable vegetable production, the so-called
spinifex or porcupine grass--botanically, the Triodia, or Festuca
irritans. The timber on the sandhills near the pillar is nearly all
mulga, a very hard acacia, though a few tall and well-grown
casuarinas