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Updated: June 6, 2025
Tietkens and I found an old rocky native well, and worked for hours with shovel and levers, to shift great boulders of rock, and on the 4th of December we finally left the deceitful Shoeing Camp never, I hope, to return.
On the Queen's birthday we bade it a last farewell, and departed for the east and civilisation, once more. We now had the route that Mr. Tietkens and I had explored in March that is to say, passing and getting water at all the following places: Gill's Pinnacle, the Ruined Rampart, Louisa's Creek, and the Chirnside. The country, as I have said before, was excellent and good for travelling over.
The horses looked fearfully hollow, and I could see at a glance that they could not possibly have had any water since they left. Mr. Tietkens reported that no water was to be got anywhere, and the country to the west appeared entirely waterless. I was, however, determined to make one more attempt.
Jimmy was but young, and to be left alone in such a lonely spot, with the constant dread of hostile attacks from the natives, would not be pleasant for any one. Our stock of poor old Terrible Billy was all but gone, and it was necessary to kill another horse. Mr. Tietkens and Jimmy had partially erected another smoke-house, and to-morrow we must work at it again.
I could get no rest last night on account of the ants, the wretches almost ate me alive, and the horses tried so often to pass by the camp that I was delighted at the reappearance of the morn. Mr. Tietkens also had to shift his camp, and drove the horses back, but ants as big as elephants, or an earthquake that would destroy the world, would never wake Gibson and Jimmy.
I hesitated for the rest of the day whether to go still farther west in search of water, or to return at once and risk the bringing of the whole party here. Tietkens and Young, I reflected, have found a new depot, and perhaps removed the whole party to it. Then, again, they might not, but have had to retreat to Youldeh.
There was a hot, tropical, sultry feeling in the atmosphere all day, though it was not actually so hot as most days lately; some terrific lightnings occurred here on the night of the 5th of December, but we heard no thunder. On the 6th and 7th Mr. Tietkens and I tried several places to the eastwards for water, but without success.
Tietkens and Jimmy came behind and sold the remaining horses at the Blinman, where they also took the coach and joined me in Adelaide a week later. I have now but a few concluding remarks to make; for my second expedition is at an end, and those of my readers who have followed my wanderings are perhaps as glad to arrive at the end as I was.
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.
After him this desert is named, and how he lost his life is related in Giles's journals. In 1874 Giles, Tietkens, Gibson, and Andrews, with twenty-four horses, left the overland Central Australian telegraph line, to push out to the West as far as possible.
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