ice rendered to
him as a duty to be discharged by one fellow-being to another when cut
off in the desert from his kin. He stopped at the camp for some time and
recognised the boat, explaining that it was upside down, as of course it
was, and pointing to the North-West as the region where they would use
it, thus raising Sturt's hopes once more. Whence he came they could not
divine, nor could he explain to them. After a fortnight he departed,
giving them to understand that he would return, but they never saw him
again.

"With him" writes Sturt pathetically, "all our hopes vanished, for even
the presence of this savage was soothing to us, and so long as he
remained we indulged in anticipations for the future. From the time of
his departure a gloomy silence pervaded the camp; we were indeed placed
under the most trying circumstances: everything combined to depress our
spirits and exhaust our patience. We had witnessed migration after
migration of the feathered tribes, to that point to which we were so
anxious to push our way. Flights of cockatoos, of parrots, of pigeons,
and of bitterns; birds also whose notes had cheered us in the wilderness,
all had taken the same road to a better and more hospitable region."

And now the water began to sink with frightful rapidity, and all thought
that surely the end must be near. Hoping against hope, Sturt laid his
plans to start as soon as the drought broke up. He himself was to proceed
north and west, whilst poor Poole, reduced to a frightful condition by
scurvy, was to be sent carefully back to the Darling, as the only means
of saving his life.

[Illustration. Poole's Grave and Monument, near Depot Glen, Tibbuburra,
New South Wales. Photo by the Reverend J.M. Curran.]

On the 12th and 13th of June the rain came, and the drought-beleaguered
invaders of the desert were relieved. But Poole did not live to profit by
the rain. Every arrangement was made for his comfort that their
circumstances permitted, but on the first day's journey he died. His body
was brought back and buried under the elevation which they called the Red
Hill, and which is now known as Mount Poole, three and a-half miles from
Depot Camp.

Sturt's way was now open. He again despatched the party selected to
return to the Darling, whose departure had been interrupted by Poole's
untimely death, and, with renewed hope, made his preparations for the
long-denied north-west.

Having first removed the depot to a better