n excellent pony,
and most handy in winding his way through the scrub. Luck rode Jenny and
led the other two camels. Hereabouts we noticed a large number of old
brush fences--curiously I have never once seen a new one--which the
natives had set up for catching wallabies. The fences run out in long
wings, which meet in a point where a hole is dug. Neither wallabies nor
natives were to be seen, though occasionally we noticed where "bardies"
had been dug out, and a little further on a native grave, a hole about
three feet square by three feet deep, lined at the bottom with gum leaves
and strips of bark, evidently ready to receive the deceased. Luck, who
knew a good deal about native customs, told me that the grave, though
apparently only large enough for a child, was really destined for a grown
man. When a man dies his first finger is cut off, because he must not
fight in the next world, nor need he throw a spear to slay animals, as
game is supplied. The body is then bent double until the knees touch the
chin--this to represent a baby before birth; and in this cramped position
the late warrior is crammed into his grave, until, according to a
semi-civilised boy that I knew, he is called to the happy hunting grounds,
where he changes colour! "Black fella tumble down, jump up white fella."
A clear proof that this benighted people have some conception of a better
state hereafter.

Once through the scrub, we came again into gum-timbered country, and when
fifty miles east of Kurnalpi crossed a narrow belt of auriferous country,
but, failing to find water, were unable to stop. In a few miles we were in
desert country--undulations of sand and spinifex, with frequent clumps of
dense mallee, a species of eucalyptus, with several straggling stems
growing from one root, and little foliage except at the ends of the
branches, an untidy and melancholy-looking tree. There was no change in
the country till after noon on the 18th, when we noticed some grass-trees,
or black-boys, smaller than those seen near the coast, and presently
struck the outskirts of a little oasis, and immediately after an old camel
pad (Lindsay's in 1892, formed by a caravan of over fifty animals), which
we followed for a few minutes, until the welcome sight of Queen Victoria
Spring met our eyes. A most remarkable spot, and one that cannot be better
described than by quoting the words of its discoverer, Ernest Giles,
in 1875, who, with a party of five companions, fift