(Illustration:  Wynbring rock.)

On the 26th of June we departed from the pretty little oasis of Wynbring, leaving its isolated and water-giving rock, in the silence and solitude of its enveloping scrubs, abandoning it once again, to the occupation of primeval man, a fertile little gem in a desolate waste, where the footsteps of the white man had never been seen until I came, where the wild emu, and the wilder black man, continually return to its life-sustaining rock, where the aboriginal inhabitants will again and again indulge in the wild revelries of the midnight corroborree dance, and where, in an existence totally distinct from ours of civilisation, men and women live and love, and eat and drink, and sleep and die.  But the passions are the same in all phases of the life of the human family, the two great master motives, of love and hunger, being the mainspring of all the actions of mankind.

Wynbring was now behind us, and Jimmy once more our guide, philosopher, and friend.  He seemed much gratified at again becoming an important member of the expedition, and he and Tommy, both upon the same riding-camel, led the way for us, through the scrubs, in the direction of about west-north-west.  In seven or eight miles we came to a little opening in the scrub, where Jimmy showed us some bare flat rocks, wherein was a nearly circular hole brimful of water.  It was, however, nearly full also of the debris of ages, as a stick could be poked into mud or dirt for several feet below the water, and it was impossible to say what depth it really was; but at the best it could not contain more than 200 or 300 gallons.  This was Taloreh.  Proceeding towards the next watering-place, which old Jimmy said was close up, in a rather more northerly direction, we found it was getting late, as we had not left Wynbring until after midday; we therefore had to encamp in the scrubs, having come about fifteen miles.  It is next to impossible to make an old fool of a black fellow understand the value of the economy of time.  I wanted to come on to Edoldeh, and so did old Jimmy; but he made out that Edoldeh was close to Taloreh, and every mile we went it was still close up, until it got so late I ordered the party to camp, where there was little or nothing that the camels could eat.  Of course it was useless to try and make Jimmy understand that, having thousands of miles to travel with the camels, it was a great object to me to endeavour to get them bushes or other food that they could eat, so as to keep them in condition to stand the long journey that was before them.  Camels, although exceedingly ravenous animals, will only eat what they like, and if they can’t get that, will lie down all night and starve, if they are too short-hobbled to allow them to wander, otherwise they will ramble for miles.  It was therefore annoying the next morning to find plenty of good bushes at Edoldeh, two miles and a half from our wretched camp, and whither we might have