Australian Explorers
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September 25

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Category: Edward John Eyre - Vol 1 - Ch 8

Written by Edward John Eyre

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September 25.—Leaving Refuge Rocks, at a course of S. 37 degrees W., we passed over a wretched country, consisting principally of heavy sandy ridges, very densely covered with scrub, and giving our horses a severe and fagging day’s work to get the dray along for only twelve miles. I then halted, as we were fortunate enough to find an opening in the scrub, with good grass. Searching about our encampment, I found in a small valley at one end of the little plain, a round hole, dug by the natives, to catch the drainage from the slope above it. There were two or three quarts of water in this hole when we discovered it; but by enlarging it, we managed to fill a bucket once every hour from the water which drained into it. This enabled us to save, to some extent, the water we had in our casks, at the same time that all the horses had as much as they could drink. I took angles from the camp to all the hills in sight, and at night made the latitude of the tent 33 degrees 18 minutes 34 seconds S. by an altitude of a Cygnus.

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