ng beside us as we
rode, jabbering and gesticulating in their usual excited manner, and
inviting us to their camp, pointing to the rising smoke. Water, however,
was our requirement, so we continued on our way down the creek, the boy
coming with us. We shot a few ducks which our young friend retrieved, and
having found a reach of fresh water just above the first and smaller
lake, returned campwards, surprising a hunting-party on our way; they
retired quickly, the boy following them, taking with him the ducks which
we had been at such pains to stalk!

The next day we moved camp to the fresh-water reach, and had not been
travelling long before a small tribe of blacks came round us, quickly
followed by our friends of the day before, and presently by more, until
we were marching along with a wild escort of nearly a hundred, mostly
men; they were fearfully excited, though quite friendly, and with yells
and shouts danced alongside, waving their spears and other weapons. I
never heard such a babel, or saw such frantic excitement about nothing,
or at least nothing that we could understand. Their wildness was tempered
with some fear of the camels, though with the horses they were quite
familiar, even going so far as to hit poor old Highlander, that I was
riding, on the rump with their spears, a proceeding that he did not
approve of. "Womany," "Womany," "White-fella," "Womany," "White-fella,"
they kept on shouting; if they meant to call our attention to the
beauties of their gins they might well have spared themselves the
trouble, for a more hideous lot of females I never set eyes on. Presently
another wild yell heralded the approach of a large band of "womany" who
waded breast deep across the creek, followed by their dogs swimming
behind. These were no improvement on the first lot; all the old and ugly
ladies of the neighbouring tribes must have been gathered together. Their
dogs however, were worthy of notice, for they were Manx-dogs, if such a
word may be coined! Closer inspection showed that they were not as
nature made them. For the tails of the dingoes the Government pays five
shillings apiece; as their destructive habits amongst sheep make them
better liked dead than alive. A black fellow's dog is much the same as a
dingo--in fact must have descended from the wild dog--and has the same
value in his owner's eyes with or without a tail. A stick of tobacco is
fair payment for a dog's tail. Thus all parties are satisfied except