Spinifex and Sand: A Narrative of Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western AustraliaPt. 2, p.35-36; Near Mount Quinn, brush fences set up to trap wallabies, native grave described; p.47-53; Water holes at Mount Luck, native camps; Pt. 5; Notes on previous explorers in the interior; employment of natives by expeditions; Native taken prisoner to act as guide to find water (Victoria Desert); Empress Spring - native camps, native cairns, 8 words listed with meanings; native well near Browne Range; Camp - implements - bark coolamons, wells, wind-breaks, camp lay-out, grindstones, yam sticks, plant foods; kurdaitcha shoes found; physical appearance of natives; method of cooking kangaroo rats, lizards; pearl shell pubic covering traded from coast 500 miles distant, firesticks carried, sporrans or tassels made of various materials; Chap. 11; Natives encountered at Wilsons Cliffs, searching for water, manufacture of chewing ball - native tobacoo; Helena Spring, 7 native words with meanings; Chap. 13; Shelter described, native with scarifications and painted body; native wells; spears, wommeras, shields and short throwing sticks carried by natives (near Southesk Tablelands); native village near Mount Ernest, wurlies, pronounced Jewish features of Aborigines, hair style; Chap. 17; Creek Aborigines treatment of prisoners - chains used; description od corroboree (Emu), body decoration; Appendix to pt. 5; Diagrams and description of weapons; Spears Kimberley and Desert - method of throwing; wommera; tomahawks - Desert; boomerangs; clubs and throwing sticks; shields, quartz knife, ceremonial sticks; rain-making boards, message sticks; brief notes on marriage laws (with tables); p.372; Method of catching ducks; p.374; 12 words with meanings from Sturt Creek area; p.380-411; Encounters with natives west of Mount Webb - wells, notes on trading. |
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Common terms and phrases
aboriginals alluvial amongst arrival auriferous country Bayley's birds black-fellow blacks Breaden buck bush camels camp carried Central Australia Charlie civilisation clay-pans cliffs Coolgardie course crossed desert diorite distance drink East expedition feed feet fire flat followed foot Forrest gallons Godfrey gold goldfields granite grass gums Hall's Creek Hampton Plains hills hole horses hundred miles journey Kalgoorlie Kimberley lagoon Lake Amadeus Lake Darlôt leaving load look Luck mate morning Mount Mount Margaret mulga natives nearly never night North numerous outcrop packs party passed plain pool poor prospecting prospectors quartz Queen Victoria Spring rain range reached reef ridge rock rock-hole round running saddle sand sand-ridges sandhills sandstone scrub seen sight soak soakage soon South spinifex Spring sticks stock route stones Sturt Creek supply surface tablelands tracks travelling tree tribe turned Warri West West Australia Western Australia whilst
Popular passages
Page 249 - From lat. 22° 40' up to lat. 20° 45' there stretches a vast howling wilderness of high spinifex-clad ridges of red sand, so close together that in an average...
Page 234 - Presently the old tracks changed into fresh ones, and close by I found two rough sandals made of strips of bark. One I kept, the other was too nearly worn out.
Page 251 - ... run in great undulations, so that for half a day, or a day perhaps, we would reach the top of one ridge only to find a higher one in front, and, similarly, the next part of our journey would be over ridges gradually sinking before us. Words can give no conception of the ghastly desolation and awful, hopeless dreariness of the scene which meets one's eyes from the crest of a high ridge. The...
Page 349 - ... were apparently about two feet deep, and covered with boughs and wood ; they are the first I have ever seen in all my travels to the eastward in Australia, and Windich says he has never come across one before either. We also found about a dozen pieces of wood, some six feet long and three to seven inches wide, and carved and trimmed up. All around were stones put up in the forked trees. I believe it is the place where the rite of circumcision is performed. Barometer 28'84; thermometer 60° at...
Page 37 - ... tree. The water is no doubt permanent, for it is supplied by the drainage of the sandhills that surround it, and it rests on a substratum of impervious clay. It lies exposed to view in a small open basin, the water being only about 150 yards in circumference and from two to three feet deep. Farther up the slopes, at much higher levels, native wells had been sunk in all directions — in each and all of these there was water. One large well, apparently a natural one, lay twelve or thirteen feet...
Page 220 - ... standing desolately alone, and perhaps having a stunted specimen or two of the quandong or native peach-tree, and the dreaded Gyrostemon growing among them. The region is so desolate that it is horrifying even to describe. The eye of God looking down on the solitary caravan, as with its slow, and snake-like motion, it presents the only living object around, must have contemplated its appearance on such a scene with pitying admiration, as it forced its way continually on; onwards without pausing,...
Page 362 - ... that one wonders that Gregory did not choose the name of " Dead " instead of " Salt" sea for the lakes he found. A curious point about this part of the creek is that stretches of salt and fresh water alternate. On unsuspectingly camping one night on its banks, we were forced, on tasting the water, to turn back several miles before we could get any fit to drink. The lake itself...
Page 231 - Dah, dah, dah!' she shouted, scratching, biting, spitting, and tearing me with her horrid long nails, and using, I feel sure, the worst language that her tongue could command. I had to carry this unsavoury object back to her camp, she clutching at every bush we passed, when her hands were not engaged in clawing and scratching me. After her anger had somewhat abated she pointed out a rock-hole from which they had got their water. Securing the woman with a light rope, I put her in Warri's charge...
Page 322 - ... rushes" known in Australia set in for the newly-discovered alluvial field. The sinking being shallow, what ground there was was soon worked out, and before long the "rush " set back again as rapidly as it had come, and the goldfield was condemned as a " duffer," and left to the few faithful "fossickers," who have made a living there to this day. The alluvial gold was the great bait, and of this but little was found, and to reefing no attention was given, and so, at the present time, we see miles...
Page 37 - I leave that spot I had perhaps better remark that it might prove a very difficult, perhaps dangerous place, to any other traveller to attempt to find, because, although there are many white sandhills in the neighbourhood, the open space on which the water lies is so small in area and so closely surrounded by scrubs, that it cannot be seen from any conspicuous one, nor can any conspicuous sandhill, distinguishable at any distance, be seen from it. It lies at or near the south-west end of a mass of...