PART VI - THE JOURNEY HOME

PART VI - THE JOURNEY HOME

Return Journey Begins

Sturt Creek And “Gregory's Salt Sea”

Our Camp On The “Salt Sea”

Desert Once More

Stansmore Range To Lake MacDonald

Lake MacDonald To The Deep Rock-Holes

The Last Of The Ridges Of Drift Sand

Woodhouse Lagoon Revisited

Across Lake Wells To Lake Darlôt

The End Of The Expedition

APPENDIX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(47 illustrations appeared in the original text, published in 1898. A number have not been reproduced in the html version of the etext.)

Hon. D. W. Carnegie

Jarrah Forest, West Australia

General store And Post-office, Coolgardie, 1892

The first hotel at Coolgardie

The “Gold Escort”

Grass trees, near Perth

Death of “Tommy”

Fresh meat at last

Bayley Street, Coolgardie, 1894

Condensing water on a salt lake

Fever-stricken and alone

Miner's Right

Typical sandstone gorge

Crossing a salt lake

Entrance to Empress Spring

At work in the cave, Empress Spring

Alexander Spring

Woodhouse Lagoon

A buck and his gins in camp at Family Well

Cresting a sand-ridge

Helena Spring

The only specimen of desert architecture

The Mad Buck

Southesk Tablelands

A native hunting party

Plan of sand-ridges

Exaggerated section of the sand-ridges

Charles W. Stansmore

Native preparing for the emu dance

Spears

Woomera

Iron Tomahawks

Stone Tomahawks

Boomerangs

Clubs and throwing-sticks

Shields

Quartz knife

Ceremonial sticks

Rain-making boards

Message sticks

Group Of Explorers

Just in time

A wild escort of nearly one hundred men

Establishing friendly relations

The tail-end of a miserable caravan

A karri timber train

A pearl shell station, Broome, N.W. Australia

INTRODUCTION

“An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.”

The following pages profess to be no more than a faithful narrative of five years spent on the goldfields and in the far interior of Western Australia. Any one looking for stirring adventures, hairbreadth escapes from wild animals and men, will be disappointed. In the Australian Bush the traveller has only Nature to war against—over him hangs always the chance of death from thirst, and sometimes from the attacks of hostile aboriginals; he has no spice of adventure, no record heads of rare game, no exciting escapades with dangerous beasts, to spur him on; no beautiful scenery, broad lakes, or winding rivers to make life pleasant for him. The unbroken monotony of an arid, uninteresting country has to be faced. Nature everywhere demands his toil. Unless he has within him impulses that give him courage to go on, he will soon return; for he will find nothing in his surroundings to act as an incentive to tempt him further.

I trust my readers will be able to glean a little knowledge of the hardships and dangers that beset the paths of Australian pioneers, and will learn something of the trials and difficulties encountered by a prospector, recognising that he is often inspired by some higher feeling than the mere “lust of gold.”

Wherever possible, I have endeavoured to add interest to my own experiences by recounting those of other travellers; and, by studying the few books that touch upon such matters to explain any points in connection with the aboriginals that from my own knowledge I am unable to do. I owe several interesting details to the Report on the Work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, and to Ethnological Studies among the North-West Central Queensland Aboriginals, by Walter E. Roth. For the identification of the few geological specimens brought in by me, I am indebted to the Government Geologist of the Mines Department, Perth, W.A., and to Mr. W. Botting Hemsley, through the courtesy of the Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, for the identification of the plants.

I also owe many thanks to my friend Mr. J. F. Cornish, who has taken so much trouble in correcting the proofs of my MSS.