sted in chopping and
carrying wood, watching the condensers, attending to the camels,
occasionally sleeping and eating, and prospecting for gold in spare time.
I think my readers will readily understand that it was hard indeed to find
much time to devote to the proper object of the expedition, however
willing we were to do so.

There were one or two others engaged on the same job at that lake, and
from one party Czar sneaked a cheap drink by thrusting his head through
the opening in the lid of a large two-hundred-gallon tank. His peculiar
position was specially adapted to the administration of a sound beating,
nor did the infuriated owner of the water fail to take advantage of the
situation.

With our tanks filled and our camels watered, we set forth from the lake
on November 21st, having prospected what country there was in its
immediate neighbourhood. The heat was intense, and walking, out of
training as we were, was dry work; our iron casks being new, gave a most
unpleasant zinc taste to the water, which made us all feel sick.
Unpleasant as this was, yet it served the useful purpose of checking the
consumption of water. Our route lay past the "Broad Arrow" to a hill that
I took to be Mount Yule, and from there almost due east to Giles'
Pinnacles. Our camels were most troublesome; young, nervous, and unused
to us or to each other, they would wander miles during the night, and give
two of us a walk of three or four miles in the morning; before the day's
work began. Two were not content with merely wandering, but persisted in
going in one direction, the third in another.

One morning Conley and Egan were following their tracks each in a
different quarter. I meanwhile climbed a neighbouring hill to spy out the
land ahead, hoping to see the white glitter of a salt lake, for we were in
likely country, ironstone blows, quartz, and diorite giving evidence of
its probable auriferous nature; we were therefore anxious to find water to
enable us to test it. On return to camp, after an absence of not more than
half an hour, I was astonished to see it surrounded by the tracks of
numerous "black-fellows." I guessed they had paid us a visit for no good
purpose, and was hardly surprised when I found that they had not only
stolen all our flour, but added insult to injury by scattering it about
the ground. Not daring to leave the camp, lest in my absence they should
return and take all our provisions, I was unable to follow the thiev