almost ate me alive, and the horses tried so often to pass by the camp
that I was delighted at the reappearance of the morn. Mr. Tietkens
also had to shift his camp, and drove the horses back, but ants as big
as elephants, or an earthquake that would destroy the world, would
never wake Gibson and Jimmy. It was difficult to get the horses to the
place where the water was, and we could only manage three at a time.
There was fortunately just enough water, though none to spare. One old
fool of a horse must needs jump into an empty rock basin; it was deep
and funnel shaped, so that he could not stand when he got there, so he
fell, and had knocked himself about terribly before we could get him
out. Indeed, I never thought he could come out whole, and I was
preparing to get him out in pieces when he made one last super-equine
exertion, and fell up and out at the same time.

The delay in watering the horses, and extracting Terrible Billy from
the basin, made it twelve o'clock before we could turn our backs upon
this hideous place, hoping to find no more like it. We travelled along
the stony slope of the range nearly west, and in less than two miles
we crossed a small creek-channel with a thick clump of gum-trees right
under the range. The tops of a second clump were also visible about
half a mile off. Mr. Tietkens went to search down Desolation Creek. I
directed Gibson to go on with the horses to the foot of a hill which I
pointed out to him, and to remain there until I overtook him. Up the
creek close to the clump of timber the whole glen was choked with a
rank vegetation, beneath which the water ran in a strong and rapid
stream that issued to the upper air from the bottom of the range. In
trying to cross this channel, my horse became entangled in the dense
vegetation, whose roots, planted in rich and oozy soil, induced the
tops of this remarkable plant to grow ten, twelve, and fifteen feet
high. It had a nasty gummy, sticky feel when touched, and emitted a