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Updated: June 10, 2025
With hearty wishes for success from the few friends who knew where we were bound for, we shook the mud of Coolgardie from our feet and took the northern road to Menzies on July 9, 1896. Breaden, Stansmore, Massie, Warri, nine heavily laden camels, and a dog made a fine show, and I confess I was near bursting from pride as I watched them.
The days were very hot, but since rising from the hollow of the lake the nights had become very much cooler. We had come so suddenly into desert country that the animals gave us great trouble, being unable, poor things, to find any food. Late starts were the order of the day, camels having wandered miles in one direction followed by Breaden and Warri, and the horses in another followed by me.
Breaden had with him his black-boy "Warri," an aboriginal from the McDonnell Ranges of Central Australia, a fine, smart-looking lad of about sixteen years, whom Breaden had trained, from the age of six, to ride and track and do the usual odd jobs required of black-boys on cattle stations. I had intended getting a discharged prisoner from the native jail at Rotnest.
In the centre of this a little bag of black seeds grows; these seeds are crushed and eaten by the natives. Munyeru, Breaden tells me, is quite a good vegetable for human consumption. Why the locality of this well, "Warri Well," should be specially favoured by the growth of parakeelia I cannot guess. The well itself was sufficiently remarkable.
A many-tinted, bluish scum always floated on the surface and tea made with it turned as black as ink nevertheless it was quite good drinking. October 1st and 2nd we spent at the well, working as above described, whilst Warri tended the camels a couple of miles away on a patch of weeds he discovered.
Warri and I were ahead for in tracking it is better to be well in advance riding and walking in turn until Highlander knocked up and had to be led. Breaden and Godfrey had awful work behind to get the camels along. At almost every sandhill one or other of them, usually Bluey, would drop and refuse to budge an inch until forced by blows.
In spite of all we could do for him, in spite of coaxing him yard by yard, Warri and I as we had done to Misery before for a day's march of over fifteen miles, we were forced to leave him to die.
Now, the well might contain a good supply, or yield no more than a gallon or two; and the blacks might or might not have gone on to a good water. It was a puzzle. Finally we compromised, and I sent Breaden and Warri to hunt up the tracks, whilst we started work again. On one side of the well was rock, and by strengthening the other by timber we hoped for success.
It soon became clear that, labour as we would, the hole would yield but little, so, leaving the rest to work, I took Warri, and continued the search for the natives from the point where Breaden had left their tracks. After a long, tedious day of tracking, we found ourselves back at our own camp.
At the moment almost Breaden and Warri returned, having done their job admirably. They had followed the tracks to the next camp, away to the North a dry camp this and, noticing the direction the blacks had taken, returned home. After a feed and a rest we again set to work, and again the well fell in, but with less danger this time.
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