In order to obviate any disadvantage
on this account, to-day I sent, with Mr. Tietkens and Alec Ross, three
camels, loaded with water, to be deposited about twenty-five miles on
our next line of route, so that the camels could top up en passant.
The water was to be poured into two canvas troughs and covered over
with a tarpaulin. This took two days going and coming, but we remained
yet another two, at the Queen's Spring.
Before I leave that spot I had perhaps better remark that it might
prove a very difficult, perhaps dangerous place, to any other
traveller to attempt to find, because, although there are many white
sandhills in the neighbourhood, the open space on which the water lies
is so small in area and so closely surrounded by scrubs, that it
cannot be seen from any conspicuous one, nor can any conspicuous
sandhill, distinguishable at any distance, be seen from it. It lies at
or near the south-west end of a mass of white-faced sandhills; there
are none to the south or west of it. While we remained here a few
aboriginals prowled about the camp, but they never showed themselves.
On the top of the bank, above all the wells, was a beaten corroborree
path, where these denizens of the desert have often held their feasts
and dances.
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