her
assertions he informed Tommy that the moon travelled from east to
west, "because, you see, Tommy," he said, "he like the sun--sun travel
west too." Tommy shook his head very sapiently, and said, "No, I don't
think that, I think moon go the other way." "No fear," said Saleh,
"how could it?" Then Peter Nicholls was asked, and he couldn't tell;
he thought Saleh was right, because the moon did set in the west. So
Tommy said, "Oh, well, I'll ask Mr. Giles," and they came to where Mr.
T, Mr. Y., and I were seated, and told us the argument. I said, "No,
Saleh, the moon travels just the other way." Then Tommy said, "I tole
you so, I know," but of course he couldn't explain himself. Saleh was
scandalised, and all his religious ideas seemed upset. So I said,
"Well, now, Saleh, you say the moon travels to the west; now do you
see where she is to-night, between those two stars?" "Oh, yes," he
said, "I see." I said, "If to-morrow night she is on the east side of
that one," pointing to one, "she must have travelled east to get
there, mustn't she?" "Oh, no," said Saleh, "she can't go there, she
must come down west like the sun," etc. In vain we showed him the next
night how she had moved still farther east among the stars; that was
nothing to him. It would have been far easier to have converted him to
Christianity than to make him alter his original opinion. With regard
to Tommy's ideas, I may say that nearly all Australian natives are
familiar with the motions of the heavenly bodies, knowing the
difference between a star and a planet, and all tribes that I have
been acquainted with have proper names for each, the moon also being a
very particular object of their attention.

While at this water we occasionally saw hawks, crows, corellas, a
pink-feathered kind of cockatoo, and black magpies, which in some
parts of the country are also called mutton birds, and pigeons. One
day Peter Nicholls shot a queer kind of carrion bird, not so large as
a crow, although its wings were as long. It had the peculiar dancing
hop of the crow, its plumage was of a dark slate colour, with whitish
tips to the wings, its beak was similar to a crow's.

We had now been at this depot for nine days, and on the 6th of October
we left it behind to the eastward, as we had done all the other
resting places we had found. I desired to go as straight as possible
for Mount Churchman. Its position by the chart is in latitude 29
degrees 58', and longitude 118 degre