a man may
recognise possible gold-bearing country without finding gold, or to read
the journals of these early travellers, in which they would see that the
Desert is plainly demarcated, and the change in the nature of the country,
the occurrence of quartz, and so forth, always recorded. These folk who so
narrowly missed the gold were not the only unfortunate ones; those
responsible for the choosing for their company of the blocks of land on
the Hampton Mains were remarkably near securing all the plums.

Bayley's is one and a half miles from their boundary, Kalgoorlie twelve
miles, Kurnalpi seven miles, and a number of other places lie just on the
wrong side of the survey line to please the shareholders, though had all
these rich districts been found on their land, I fancy there would have
been a pretty outcry from the general public.

At the time of which I am writing this land was considered likely to be as
rich as Ophir. Luck and I were expected to trip up over nuggets, and come
back simply impregnated with gold. Unfortunately we not only found no
gold, but formed a very poor idea of that part of the property which we
were able to traverse, though, given a good supply of water, it should
prove valuable stock country. Before we had been very long started on our
journey we met numerous parties returning from that region, though legally
they had no right to prospect there; each told us the same story--every
water was dry; and since every one we had been to was all but dry, we
concluded that they were speaking the truth; so when we arrived at Yindi,
a large granite rock with a cavity capable of holding some twenty
thousand gallons of water, and found Yindi dry, we decided to leave the
Hampton Plains and push out into new country.

Queen Victoria Spring, reported permanent by Giles, lay some seventy
miles to the eastward, and attracted our attention; for Lindsay had
reported quartz country near the Ponton, not far from the Spring, and the
country directly between the Spring and Kurnalpi was unknown.

On April 15th we left Yindi, having seen the last water twenty-six miles
back near Gundockerta, and passed Mount Quinn, entering a dense thicket of
mulga, which lasted for the next twenty miles. It was most awkward country
to steer through, and I often overheard Luck muttering to himself that I
was going all wrong, for he was a first-rate bushman and I a novice. I had
bought a little brumby from a man we met on the Plains, a