all night and chew the cud. I have often noticed how much camels like
society; under favourable conditions--that is to say when travelling in
good camel-country like the Southern goldfields--they will feed for an
hour or so before dark, then slowly make their way with clattering
hobble-chains and clanging bells back to the camp-fire, and there, with
many grunts of satisfaction, lie peacefully until just before daylight,
when they go off for another feed. On moonlight nights they like to roam
about and pick choice morsels of bush on and off until daylight. In this
waste corner of the earth where now we battled our way, the poor brutes
wandered aimlessly about, now trying a mouthful of sharp spinifex and now
the leaves of a eucalyptus; turning from these in disgust, a little patch
of weed might be discovered by one lucky camel; no sooner would he hurry
towards it than the others would notice it, and then a great scramble
ensued and the weakest went without--though I have seen the strong help
the weak, as in the case of Czar, who, with his powerful jaws, would break
down branches for Misery, then quite young and without the requisite
teeth. How fine they look with their long necks stretched upwards with the
heads thrown back and the sensitive lips extended to catch some extra
fresh bunch of leaves! How cunningly they go to work to break a branch
that is out of reach; first the lowest leaf is gently taken in the lips
and pulled down until the mouth can catch hold of some hanging twig--along
this it is worked, and so from twig to branch, a greater strain being
exerted as the branches increase in size, until finally the main limb of
the branch is seized, and bent and twisted until broken. Often they try
for one branch time after time, for having set their minds on a particular
morsel, nothing will satisfy them until they have it.

No such scene could be watched from our camp on the ridge. But still we
had something out of the common to look upon in the shape of hills ahead,
and my hopes were high that we should soon see the last of the desert.