In spite of old Jimmy’s asseverations, there was only sufficient water to last one or two days, and what there was, was very thick and whitish-coloured.  The six animals being excessively thirsty, the volume of the fluid gradually diminished in the moonlight before our eyes; the camels and horses’ legs and noses were all pushing against one another while they drank.

This wall, or dam, constructed by the aboriginals, is the first piece of work of art or usefulness that I had ever seen in all my travels in Australia; and if I had only heard of it, I should seriously have reflected upon the credibility of my informant, because no attempts of skill, or ingenuity, on the part of Australian natives, applied to building, or the storage of water, have previously been met with, and I was very much astonished at beholding one now.  This piece of work was two feet thick on the top of the wall, twenty yards in the length of its sweep, and at the bottom, where the water lodged, the embankment was nearly five feet thick.  The clay of which this dam was composed had been dug out of the hole in which the water lay, with small native wooden shovels, and piled up to its present dimensions.

Immediately around this singular monument of native industry, there are a few hundred acres of very pretty country, beautifully grassed and ornamented with a few mulga (acacia) trees, standing picturesquely apart.  The spot lies in a basin or hollow, and is surrounded in all directions by scrubs and rolling sandhills.  How we got to it I can scarcely tell, as our guide kept constantly changing his course, so that the compass was of little or no use, and it was only by the sextant I could discover our whereabouts; by it I found we had come fifty-eight miles from Youldeh on a bearing of south 68 degrees east, we being now in latitude 30 degrees 43’ and longitude 132 degrees 44’.  There was so little water here that I was unable to remain more than one day, during which the thermometer indicated 104 degrees in the shade.

To the eastward of this dam there was a sandhill with a few black oaks (casuarinas) growing upon it, about a quarter of a mile away.  A number of stones of a calcareous nature were scattered about on it; on going up this hill the day we rested the animals here, I was surprised to find a broad path had been cleared amongst the stones for some dozens of yards, an oak-tree at each end being the terminal points.  At the foot of each tree at the end of the path the largest stones were heaped; the path was indented with the tramplings of many natives’ feet, and I felt sure that it was one of those places where the men of this region perform inhuman mutilations upon the youths and maidens of their tribe.  I questioned old Jimmy about these matters, but he was like all others of his race, who, while admitting the facts, protest that they, individually, have never officiated at such doings.