ange the country improved greatly,
and had every appearance of having experienced recent rains, for green
herbage [HALORAGIS, and TRICHINIUM ALOPECUROIDEUM.] was in places
abundant--that is to say, little patches of it, perhaps twenty paces
across. These we saw were feeding-grounds for kangaroos and wallabies.
Turkey tracks were fairly numerous; of the latter we saw six, and shot
one. They are very wary birds and not easily stalked. A very good plan
for shooting them is for one man to hide in a bush or behind a tree
whilst the other circles round a good way off, and very slowly advances,
and so drives the turkey past the hidden sportsman. He, if he is wise,
will let the turkey rise before firing, as their wings are easily broken,
whilst the thick breast-feathers readily turn shot.

We made camp one mile from the foot of the hills, and Charlie and I
walked over to see what was to be seen. This range is of sandstone, and
made up of a series of flat-topped hills of peculiar shapes, standing on
the usual rough, stony slopes. The hills are traceable in a broken line
for a considerable distance, perhaps twenty miles, in a North-Easterly
direction. No doubt some good water-hole exists amongst these hills,
judging from the tracks of kangaroos, turkeys, and dingoes. I fancy that
animals and birds follow up rain-storms from place to place to take
advantage of the good feed which springs into life, and it is most
probable that for ten months in the year these hills are undisturbed by
animal or bird life. Certainly Giles found that to be the case when he
crossed them in 1876; so disgusted was he with their appearance that he
did not trouble to investigate them at all. Indeed, he could have no
other than sad remembrances of this range, for he first sighted it from
the East, when attempting to cross the interior from East to West--an
attempt that failed, owing to the impossibility of traversing this desert
of rolling sand and gravel with horses only as a means of transport.
Baffled, he was forced to return, leaving behind him, lost for ever,
his companion Gibson. After him this desert is named, and how he lost his
life is related in Giles's journals.

In 1874 Giles, Tietkens, Gibson, and Andrews, with twenty-four horses,
left the overland Central Australian telegraph line, to push out to the
West as far as possible. Keeping to the South of the already discovered
Lake Amadeus, they found the Rawlinson and neighbouring ranges just
wit