pulled out, which dainty is thrown to any dog or child that happens to be
near; the reptile is then placed on hot coals until distended to the
utmost limit that the skin will bear without bursting, then it is placed
on ashes less hot, and covered with the same, and after a few minutes is
pronounced cooked and ready for the table. The old lady did the cooking,
and kept up an incessant chattering and swearing the while. We noticed
how kind they were to the poor diseased buck, giving him little tit-bits
of half-raw rat's flesh, which he greatly preferred to any food we fed
him. They were strange, primitive people, and yet kind and grateful. We
anointed the sick man's wounds with tar and oil (a mixture used for mange
in camels), and were well rewarded for our unsavoury task by his dog-like
looks of satisfaction and thanks. We had ample opportunity to watch them
at night, as our well-sinking operations kept us up. They seemed afraid
to sleep or lie down, and remained crouching together in their little
hollows in the sand until morning. To break the force of the wind, which
blew rather chilly, they had set up the usual spinifex fence, and between
each little hollow a small fire burnt. The stillness of the night was
only broken by the occasional cry of the baby, and this was immediately
suppressed by the mother in a novel manner, viz., by biting the infant's
ear--a remedy followed by almost immediate success. I beg to recommend
this exceedingly effective plan to any of my lady readers whose night's
rest is troubled by a teething child--doubtless the husband's bite would
have an equally good effect, but the poor baby's ears might suffer from a
combination of a strong jaw and a ruffled temper.

What a strange sound--that little picaninny's cry; surrounded as we were
by a boundless sea of sand, it made one think how small a speck our party
was on the face of the earth; it somehow took one's thoughts back to
civilisation and crowded cities, and one felt that it was not just very
certain if one would see such things again; and how little it would take