Tommy found a number of long, flat, sword-like weapons
close by, and brought four or five of them into the camp. They were
ornamented after the usual Australian aboriginal fashion, some with
slanting cuts or grooves along the blade, others with square,
elliptical, or rounded figures; several of these two-handed swords
were seven feet long, and four or five inches wide; wielded with good
force, they were formidable enough to cut a man in half at a blow.
This spring could not be the only water in this region; I believe
there was plenty more in the immediate neighbourhood, as the natives
never came to water here. It was singular how we should have dropped
upon such a scene, and penetrated thus the desert's vastness, to the
scrub-secluded fastness of these Austral-Indians' home. Mr. Young and
I collected a great many specimens of plants, flowers, insects, and
reptiles. Among the flowers was the marvellous red, white, blue, and
yellow wax-like flower of a hideous little gnarled and stunted
mallee-tree; it is impossible to keep these flowers unless they could
be hermetically preserved in glass; all I collected and most carefully
put away in separate tin boxes fell to pieces, and lost their colours.
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