was one, that is to say its banks became further apart, and lower, until
its wash was spread out in all directions over a flat whose limits were
defined by bloodwoods and grass. Here we found an old blacks' camp and
spent some time examining its neighbourhood. Little heaps of the yellow
seed of a low plant, swept together on clear spaces on the ground, and
the non-existence of any well, led us to suppose that this was merely a
travelling camp of some buck who had been sent to collect seed. It was
rather aggravating to be morally certain that water existed and yet be
unable to find it; we still had hopes of the creek making again, and so
followed the direction of its previous course.

Before long the tracks of a buck and a gin crossed our path, and we at
once turned to follow them through all their deviations. We saw where the
woman had dug out bardies from the roots of a wattle, where the buck had
unearthed a rat,* and where together they had chased a lizard. Finally we
reached their camp. Several implements lay about, including two bark
coolimans. These, the simplest form of cooliman, are made by peeling the
bark off the projecting lumps so common on the stems of bloodwoods. The
bark so obtained forms a little trough. In some regions they are gouged
out of a solid piece of wood, but this requires a knowledge of carpentry,
and probably tools, not possessed by the desert black. Another kind more
simple than the first mentioned, is made by bending the two sides of a
strip of bark together, so as to form the half of a pipe; then, by
stuffing up the two ends with clay and grass, a serviceable little trough
is made. In those we saw the clay was moist, and we knew that this was no
mere travelling camp. However, search as we would we could find no water,
until a flock of diamond-sparrows rose in front of Warri, and he
discovered a little well hidden in the spinifex--so perfectly hidden that
our own tracks had passed half an hour before its discovery within a few
paces of it!