in.  This last place was the privilege of the steersman when his hour of agony was up.  After the caravan had forced its way through this forest primeval, there was generally left an open serpentine line about six feet above the ground, through the trees, and when a person was on this line they could see that something unusual must have passed through.  On the ground was a narrower line about two feet wide, and sometimes as much as a foot deep, where one animal after another had stepped.  In my former journals I mentioned that the spinifex wounded the horses’ feet, and disfigured their coronets, it also used to take a good deal of hair off some of the horses’ legs; but in the case of the camels, although it did not seem to excoriate them, it took every hair off their legs up to three feet from the ground, and their limbs turned black, and were as bright and shiny as a newly polished boot.  The camels’ hair was much finer than that of the horses’, but their skin was much thicker, and while the horses’ legs were punctured and suppurating, the camels’ were all as hard as steel and bright as bayonets.

What breakfast we had was always taken very early, before it was light enough to track the camels; then, while some of the party went after them, the others’ duty was to have all the saddles and packs ready for instant loading.  Our shortest record of leaving a camp (On a piece of open ground.) was half an hour from the instant the first camel was caught, but it usually took the best part of an hour before a clearance could be effected.  Upon leaving Ooldabinna we had our westerly tracks to follow; this made the road easier.  At the ninety-mile place, where I left the two water casks, we were glad to find them all safe, and in consequence of the shade we had put over them, there had been no loss of water from evaporation.  On the sixth night from Ooldabinna we were well on our way towards the little dam, having come 120 miles.  The heat had been very oppressive.  At dusk of that day some clouds obscured the sky, and light rain fell, continuing nearly all night.  On the seventh day, the 30th of August, there was every appearance of wet setting in.  I was very thankful, for now I felt sure we should find more water in the little dam than when I left it.  We quietly ensconced ourselves under our tents in the midst of the scrubs, and might be said to have enjoyed a holiday as a respite and repose, in contrast to our usual perpetual motion.  The ground was far too porous to hold any surface water, and had our camels wanted it never so much, it could only be caught upon some outspread tarpaulins; but what with the descending moisture, the water we carried and the rain we caught, we could now give them as much as they liked to drink, and I now felt sure of getting more when we arrived at the little dam.  During the night of the 29th one of our best cow-camels calved.  Unfortunately the animal strained herself so severely in one of her hips, or other part of her hind legs, that she could not rise