We were glad enough to secure
him again, and the water he carried.
The next morning we were under weigh very early, and, following the
old guide Jimmy, we went in a south-east direction towards the first
watering place that he knew, and which he said was called Chimpering.
Many times before we reached this place the old fellow seemed very
uncertain of his whereabouts, but by dodging about amongst the
sandhills--the country being all rolling hummocks of red sand covered
with dense scrubs and the universal spinifex--he managed to drop down
upon it, after we had travelled about thirty miles from Youldeh.
Chimpering consisted of a small acacia, or as we say a mulga, hollow,
the mulga being the Acacia aneura; here a few bare red granite rocks
were exposed to view. In a crevice between two of these Jimmy showed
us a small orifice, which we found, upon baling out, to contain only
three buckets of a filthy black fluid that old Jimmy declared was
water. We annoyed him fearfully by pretending we did not know what it
was. Poor old chap, he couldn't explain how angry he was, but he
managed to stammer out, "White fellow--fool; pony drink 'em." The day
was excessively hot, the thermometer stood at 106 degrees in the
shade.
Pages:
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558