While at Port Augusta, Mr. Charles Roberts, who had been with me, and with whom I left all the horses at Youldeh, arrived, by the usual road and brought me a young black boy, Master Tommy Oldham, with whom I had travelled to Eucla from Fowler’s Bay with the three horses that had died on my journey to Beltana.  He was very sorry to hear of the loss of Chester and Formby, the latter having been his riding-horse.  Old Jimmy was immensely delighted to meet one of his own people in a strange place.  Tommy was a great acquisition to the party, he was a very nice little chap, and soon became a general favourite.

Everything being at length ready, the equipment of the expedition was most excellent and capable.  Sir Thomas had sent me from Adelaide several large pairs of leather bags, one to be slung on each side of a camel; all our minor, breakable, and perishable articles were thus secure from wet or damp.  In several of these large bags I had wooden boxes at the bottom, so that all books, papers, instruments, glass, etc., were safe.  At starting the loads were rather heavy, the lightest-weighted camels carrying two bags of flour, cased in raw-hide covers, the two bags weighing about 450 pounds, and a large tarpaulin about 60 pounds on top, or a couple of empty casks or other gear, which did not require to be placed inside the leather bags.  The way the camels’ loads are placed by the Afghan camel-men is different from, and at first surprising to persons accustomed to, pack-horse loads.  For instance, the two bags of flour are carried as perpendicularly as possible.  As a general rule, it struck me the way they arranged the loads was absurd, as the whole weight comes down on the unfortunate animal’s loins; they use neither bags nor trunks, but tie up almost every article with pieces of rope.

My Afghan, Saleh, was horrified at the fearful innovations I made upon his method.  I furnished the leather bags with broad straps to sustain them, having large rings and buckles to pass them through and fasten in the ordinary way of buckle and strap; this had the effect of making the loads in the bags and trunks lie as horizontally as possible along the sides of the pads of the pack-saddles.  Saleh still wanted to encumber them with ropes, so that they could not be opened without untying about a thousand knots.  I would not permit such a violation of my ideas, and told him the loads should be carried as they stood upon the ground; his argument always was, a la Coogee Mahomet, “Camel he can’t carry them that way,” to which I invariably replied, “Camel he must and camel he shall,” and the consequence was that camel he did.