-hundreds of miles from
family or friends--alone absolutely! not a sign of life around them--no
bird or beast to tell them that life existed for any--no sound to break
the stillness of that ghastly wilderness--no green grass or trees to
relieve the monotony of the sand--nothing but the eternal spinifex and a
few shrunken stems of trees that have been--no shade from the burning
sun--above them the clear sky only clouded by death! slow, cruel death,
and yet in their stout hearts love and courage! Poor fellows! they died
like men, with a message written by dying fingers for those they left to
mourn them--a message full of affection, expressing no fear of death, but
perfect faith in God. So might all mothers be content to see their sons
die--when their time comes.

They had died, it appears, too soon for any aid to have reached them.
Even had Mr. Wells been able to turn back on his tracks at once on
arrival at the Fitzroy, it is doubtful if he could have been in time to
give any help to his suffering comrades.

The bodies were taken to Adelaide, where the whole country joined in
doing honour to the dead.

CHAPTER XVI

KIMBERLEY

Since we were not to retackle the sand forthwith, we laid ourselves out
to rest and do nothing to the very best of our ability. This resolve was
made easy of execution, for no sooner had the Warden, Mr. Cummins, heard
of our arrival, than he invited us to his house, where we remained during
our stay in Hall's Creek, and met with so much kindness and hospitality
that we felt more than ever pleased that we had arrived at this
out-of-the-way spot by a rather novel route.

Since Kimberley (excepting the South African district) must be an unknown
name to the majority of English readers, and since it is one of the most
valuable portions of West Australia, it deserves more than passing
mention.

Hall's Creek, named after the first prospector who found payable gold in
the district, is the official centre of the once populous Kimberley
goldfields, and the seat of justice, law, and order for the East
Kimberley division.

Attention was first drawn to this part of the Colony by the report of
Alexander Forrest, who discovered the Fitzroy, Margaret, and other
rivers; but it was not the pastoral land described by him that caused any
influx of population. Gold was the lure. The existence of gold was
discovered by Mr. Hardman, geologist, attached to a Government
survey-party under Mr. Johnston