called the "Puffs." A horse suffering from this pants and blows after the
least exertion, and in the hot weather his skin becomes puffy, and any
violent exercise would be fatal. The Monk, one of our horses, suffered
from this slightly; as soon, however, as we had left the Kimberley
district and entered the desert he recovered entirely. Numerous small
families of natives were camped along the creek, all accompanied by dogs,
which gave us some annoyance at night; for salt meat, at first, should be
hung out during the night to get the benefit of the fresh air, and this
roused their hungry instincts. A few miles below the Wolf, Mr. Stretch
left us, and we parted from our kind host with regret--he to return to
his cattle, and we to the task of laying bare the richness (we hoped) or
the nakedness (we expected) of the untrodden land before us.

At first we did very small stages, for the joy of travelling alongside
running water was too great to be quickly passed over. The camels and
horses became good chums very soon, and played about together without any
signs of fear or surprise on the part of the horses, although they had
never seen camels before--a different state of affairs from that in
Coolgardie, where horses as a rule snort and plunge with terror on first
acquaintance with an "emu-brother," as the black-fellow calls the camel.
As we neared the lakes we had some difficulty in finding water fit to
drink, and camped about nine miles above the lakes, whilst Godfrey and I
scouted ahead to see if fresh water could be found lower down. We
surprised two camps of natives, most of whom ran into the scrub as we
approached--several gins and a boy remaining. One of the women had a most
remarkable baby, quite a small thing, but with a tremendous growth of
black hair, shiny and straight, altogether different from the ordinary
coarse hair of the aboriginal. They came with us, walking beside us as we
rode, jabbering and gesticulating in their usual excited manner, and
inviting us to their camp, pointing to the rising smoke. Water, however,