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After a deal of labour, slips, and knocks, we at last arrived on the top. It is quite as high as Mount Serle, if not higher. The view to the north is over a large plain of gums, mulga, and spinifex, with watercourses running through it. The large gum creek that we crossed winds round this hill in a north-east direction; at about ten miles it is joined by another.
But far and near one saw nothing but cornfields and meadows, that had the regularity of a carpet pattern, intersected by clay-colored dikes, straight ditches full of stagnant brown water, here and there a busy windmill, and in the distance the smooth-flowing watercourses which bounded the landscape.
No hills curve more gracefully, no atmosphere is more soft, no watercourses are more enticing. Into this region came the Virginian family, consisting, besides the parents, of three sons and two daughters. A year or two later the head of the family was murdered by a skulking Indian, who proceeded to kidnap the youngest son, Thomas.
The bank of the river was intersected by deep watercourses, and the ground being extremely slippery from the rain which had fallen during the night, I was unable to overtake him until he came to bay in a patch of lofty dense reeds which grew on the lower bank, immediately adjacent to the river's margin. I had brought out eleven of my dogs, and before I could come up three of them were killed.
Next morning that which seemed to me a miracle had been wrought. Incredible though it may appear, all the creeks, which until the previous night had been mere dry watercourses for an untold number of months, were rippling and running with the much-needed water, and we were saved all further anxiety, at any rate for the time.
He made no important discoveries, being amongst the country common to the central districts of Australia alternate desert, and pastoral land, with few and insignificant watercourses. It being a matter of moment to settle the position of the border line between the two colonies, surveyor Weinnecke was again dispatched in 1880 to make another attempt.
On the contrary, they looked upon the mighty trans-montane domain with its many watercourses, its rich soil, and its temperate climate, as a rich field for experimentation in the erection of new and free republics.
As the creek again turned to the west and north-west, the water-holes increased both in size and number, although the flats within the valley were limited and intersected by watercourses.
To prevent any difficulties during my absence, in the event of the water failing in the rocky hole, I sent the native boy to shew the overseer the place where the permanent water was, and gave him instructions to move the party thither if he should find it necessary; but not until their safety absolutely required it, or before he had fully ascertained that no water was to be procured by digging in the bed of any of the adjoining watercourses.
We all know what a wretch Arnold Baxter is, and out in this wild country almost anything is liable to happen." On and on they went, first over a stubble of thin grass and then through a forest of tall pine trees. Rocks were everywhere, and the trail wound in and out, with an occasional watercourse to be forded. "These watercourses are all right now," observed Jack Wumble.
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