natives, and although the women would not come close, several of the men did, and made themselves useful by holding some of the horses’ bridles and getting firewood.  Most of them had names given them by their godfathers at their baptism, that is to say, either by the officers or men of the Overland Telegraph Construction parties.  This was my thirty-second camp; I called it Rogers’s Pass; twenty-two miles was our day’s stage.  From here two conspicuous semi-conical hills, or as I should say, truncated cones, of almost identical appearance, caught my attention; they bore nearly south 60 degrees east.

(Illustration:  Junction of the Palmer and Finke.)

Bidding adieu to our sable friends, who had had breakfast with us and again made themselves useful, we started for the twins.  To the south of them was a range of some length; of this the twins formed a part.  I called it Seymour’s Range, and a conic hill at its western end Mount Ormerod.  We passed the twins in eleven miles, and found some water in the creek near a peculiar red sandstone hill, Mount Quin; the general course of the creek was south 70 degrees east.  Seymour’s Range, together with Mounts Quin and Ormerod, had a series of watermarks in horizontal lines along their face, similar to Johnston’s Range, seen when first starting, the two ranges lying east and west of one another; the latter-named range we were again rapidly approaching.  Not far from Mount Quin I found some clay water-holes in a lateral channel.  The creek now ran nearly east, and having taken my latitude this morning by Aldeberan, I was sure of what I anticipated, namely, that I was running down the creek I had called Number 2.  It was one that joined the Finke at my outgoing Number 2 camp.  We found a water-hole to-day, fenced in by the natives.  There was a low range to the south-west, and a tent-shaped hill more easterly.  We rested the horses at the fenced-in water-hole.  I walked to the top of the tent hill, and saw the creek went through another pass to the north-east.  In the afternoon I rode over to this pass and found some ponds of water on this side of it.  A bullock whose tracks I had seen further up the creek had got bogged here.  We next travelled through the pass, which I called Briscoe’s Pass, the creek now turning up nearly north-east; in six miles further it ran under a hill, which I well remembered in going out; at thirteen miles from the camp it ended in the broader bosom of the Finke, where there was a fine water-hole at the junction, in the bed of the smaller creek, which was called the Palmer.  The Finke now appeared very different to when we passed up.  It then had a stream of water running along its channel, but was now almost dry, except that water appeared at intervals upon the surface of the white and sandy bed, which, however, was generally either salty or bitter; others, again, were drinkable enough.  Upon reaching the river we camped.