There were a few low sandhills near, ornamented with occasional
mulga-trees, and they made the place very pretty and picturesque.
There were several old and new native gunyahs, or houses, if such a
term can be applied to these insignificant structures. Australian
aborigines are a race who do not live in houses at all, but still the
common instincts of humanity induce all men to try and secure some
spot of earth which, for a time at least, they may call home; and
though the nomadic inhabitants or owners of these Australian wilds, do
not remain for long in any one particular place, in consequence of the
game becoming too wild or destroyed, or water being used up or
evaporated, yet, wherever they are located, every man or head of a
family has his home and his house, to which he returns in after
seasons. The natives in this, as in most other parts of Australia,
seldom hunt without making perpetual grass or spinifex fires, and the
traveller in these wilds may be always sure that the natives are in
the neighbourhood when he can see the smokes, but it by no means
follows that because there are smokes there must be water. An
inversion of the terms would be far more correct, and you might safely
declare that because there is water there are sure to be smokes, and
because there are smokes there are sure to be fires and because there
are fires there are sure to be natives, the present case being no
exception to the rule, as several columns of smoke appeared in various
directions.
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