At night we camped again
without food or water. The morning after, we reached Gill's Pinnacle
early, and famished enough to eat each other. We mixed up, cooked, and
ate our small remnant of flour. The last two days have been reasonably
cool; anything under 100 degrees is cool in this region. We found that
during our absence the natives had placed a quantity of gum-leaves and
small boughs into the interstices of the small mounds of stone, or as
I call them, teocallis, which I mentioned previously; this had
evidently been done so soon as we departed, for they were now dead and
dry. After bathing, remounting, we made good another twenty miles, and
camped in triodia and casuarina sandhills. We reached the camp at the
pass by nine a.m. on the 19th, having been absent ten days. Gibson and
Jimmy were there certainly, and nothing had gone wrong, but these two
poor fellows looked as pale as ghosts. Gibson imagined we had gone to
the west, and was much perturbed by our protracted absence.
The water in the open holes did not agree with either Gibson or Jimmy,
and, when starting, I had shown them where to dig for a spring of
fresh water, and where I had nearly got a horse bogged one day when I
rode there, to see what it was like.
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