s and hats,
hair cutting, diary writing, plotting our course, arranging photograph
plates (the majority of which were, alas! spoilt by the heat), mending a
camera cracked by the sun, making hobble-straps, mending and stuffing
saddles, rearranging packs cleaning firearms, and other like occupations.
The heat was extreme; too great for my little thermometer which
registered up to 140 (degrees) F., and intensified by hot winds and
"Willy-Willies" (sometimes of great violence), which greatly endangered
our camp. Godfrey excelled himself in the cooking department, and our
usual diet of "tinned dog" was agreeably varied by small pigeons, which
came in numbers to drink--pretty little slate-grey birds with tufts on
their heads, common enough in Australia. Of these we shot over fifty, and,
as well, a few of the larger bronzewing pigeons. The tufted birds come to
water just after daylight and just before sundown, and so are more easily
shot than the bronzewing. Throughout the day, galahs, wee-jugglers,
parakeets, diamond-sparrows, and an occasional hawk or crow, came to the
spring, evidently a favourite resort. Curiously enough, but few native
camps were to be seen, nor is this the first time that I have noticed that
the best waters are least used. The Australian aboriginal is not usually
credited with much thought for the morrow. These desert people, however,
have some provident habits, for first the small native wells are used, and
only when these are exhausted are the more permanent waters resorted to.
As an instance of their powers of following a "spoor," it may be
mentioned that on several occasions our captive suddenly darted off at a
tangent with eyes to ground, and then started digging his heel in the sand
to find where a lizard or iguana was that he had tracked to his hole.
Warri, amongst his other accomplishments, was most useful as a retriever
of any wounded pigeon; he would hunt about until he spotted a fresh track,
and before long had captured the bird. Any one who has noticed the number
of hen-tracks in a poultry yard will appreciate this delicate performance.
Warri, I am sure, would have been invaluable to Sherlock Holmes.

Pleasant as our camp was we could not stay too long, for we still had a
considerable tract of unknown country before us. As the result of
numerous observations I make the position of Helena Spring to be lat. 21
degrees, 20 minutes 30 seconds South, and (by dead reckoning) long. 126
degrees 20 min