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Securing the woman with a light rope, I put her in Warri's charge, who kept watch above, lest the natives should return and surprise us, whilst I descended the rock-hole to see what supply was there. A little water was visible, which I quickly baled into the canvas bags we had brought for the purpose.
So sure were we of the supply in the granite that we gave the camels the few gallons that were left in our bags, and were much disgusted to find the next day that, far from being a soakage, the water was merely contained in a rock-hole, which had been filled in with sand and sticks.
It looked high and rugged, and I thought to find water in some rock-hole or crevice about it. Leave Wynbring. The horses. Mountains of sand. Mount Finke. One horse succumbs. Torchlight tracking. Trouble with the camels. A low mount. Dry salt lagoons. 200 miles yet from water. Hope. Death of Chester. The last horse. A steede, a steede. Ships of the desert. Reflections at night. Death or Water.
After digging out the sand and hauling it in buckets to the surface we had a rock-hole nearly conical in shape, twenty-five feet deep, twenty feet by fifteen at the mouth, narrowing in on all sides to three feet in diameter at the bottom. The first day and night we laboured until we literally could no longer move, from sheer exhaustion.
He looked down on the other side for the expected water-hole, but the valley was covered with dense scrub, and he saw nothing to give him hope of a drink. However, the ranges were so well watered that he started at once to go down the hill, hoping to find a spring or rock-hole somewhere in the valley. He was disappointed for some time.
Tietkens and Gibson returned, and reported that, although they had discovered a new rock-hole with seven or eight feet of water in it, it was utterly useless; for no horses could get within three-quarters of a mile of it, and they had been unable to water their horses, having had to do so at the Circus.
When we arrived at one dry rock-hole and then another, it dawned upon me what the secret joke had been that so amused our friend; and I determined that he should be of some use to us before we parted company. Of these dry rock-holes, one would, after rain, hold a fair amount of water, and is situated on the shoulder between two low table-tops.
Indeed, even when using a compass, one instinctively pays as much and more attention to the sun or the stars, as the case may be. The rock-hole at Beri was dry, so we pushed on for Lake Roe, and, though we worked sinking holes until past midnight, and nearly the whole of the next day, we were unable to find water.
To the East of the rock-hole is a very prominent bluff some fifteen miles distant; this I named Mount Fleming, after Colonel Fleming, then Commandant of the West Australian forces. May 2nd we reached the hills and rejoiced to find ourselves once more in decent country. Numerous small, dry watercourses ran down from the hills, fringed with grass and bushes.
All is sand, and throughout the region no water is to be found, unless immediately after rain in the little creeks, or in some hidden rock-hole. Even a heavy storm of rain would leave no signs in such country; half an hour after the fall no water would be seen, except on the rocky ground, which only occurs at very long intervals.
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