others, which might lead me away to the west. Up to the present time
we had always called this, in consequence of its bearing when first
seen, the North-west Mountain. I thought a change of country might be
met with sooner in a north or north-westerly direction than in a west
or south-westerly one, as the sources of the Murchison River must be
met somewhere in the former direction. I tried the boiling-point of
water here, and found that the ebullition occurred at two degrees
higher than at the Alice Falls, which indicated a fall of nearly 1000
feet, the western end of the range being much lower than the middle or
eastern. We had still a couple of bottles of spirit left in the
medical department, and as nobody seemed inclined to get ill, we
opened one here. Jimmy Andrews having been a sailor boy, I am afraid
had learnt bad habits, as he was very fond of grog. When we opened the
last bottle at Christmas, and Jimmy had had a taste, he said, "What's
the use of only a nobbler or two? I wouldn't give a d--," dump, I
suppose he meant, "for grog unless I could get drunk." I said, "Well,
now, my impression is that it would require very little grog to do
that." He said, "Why, I'd drink six bottles off and never know it." I
said, "Well, the next bottle we open you shall have as much out of it
as you can take in one drink, even if you drink the whole bottle." He
replied, "Oh, all right, I'll leave a nobbler for you, you know, Mr.
Giles; and I'd like to give Tietkens a taste; but that [adjective]
Gibson, I'll swear he won't git none." So we opened the bottle, and I
said, "Now then, Jimmy, here's your grog, let's see how much you can
drink." "Oh!" said he," I ain't going to drink it all at once." "All
right," I said, "if you don't, we shall--so now is your chance." Jimmy
poured out a good stiff glass and persisted in swallowing it raw. In
five minutes he was fast asleep, and that was all he got out of the
bottle; he never woke till morning, and then--well, the bottle was
empty then.