HORN EXPEDITION — NARRATIVE. 83 



Travelling on after a short halt we came just at dusk to tlie top of a sandhill 

 and saw Lak(^ Aniadeiis lying at our feet. It was a strange sight ; the litnl of the 

 lake was here only some three-quarters of a mile wide, but east and west it 

 stretched away to the horizon, widening out, especially westwards, into a vast 

 sheet many miles across. There was not a speck of water, only a dead level 

 surface of white salt standing out against the rich after glow in the west and the 

 dull sky to the east, whilst north and south it was hemmed in hy low hills 

 covered with dark scrub. 



It was at this spot that the lake had first been crossed by Uosse and shoi-tly 

 afterwards l)y Giles, the latter having l)cen previously liiifTled in his .attempts to 

 cross owing to the boggy nature of tlie ground. By good luck, as Mr. Cowle who 

 h,ad previously lieen acros.s, was aware the bed was dry and passable, and 

 (hsmounting we led our horses over with little trouble, and just as it grew dark 

 camped on the top of a low rise on the south side. 



Everything was peifectly silent; there was no sign of animal life except for a 

 solitary gaunt-looking dingo which followed us half-way across, and the white 

 slieet of salt seen in the dai'kness through the sharp, thin stems of the Mulga 

 looked strangely weird. 



One could not help thinking of the contr.ast between the silence and steiility 

 of the scene as we looked down upon it now and tlie fertility and abundance of 

 life which must once have characterised it wlien in bygone ages it was a great 

 sheet of fresh water surrounded with a rich and varied forest growth amongst 

 which bi'owsed huge diprotodons and bii-ds as large as the New Zealand Moa. 



The day had been hot and somewhat fatiguing, and as this was the second 

 night out for the horses without water they h;id to be tied up to prevent f hem 

 from wandering far away in search of food and drink, as there w.as another still 

 harder day's work in store for them before, as we hoped, they would get water at 

 Ayers Rock. 



After breakfasting by starlight we left the lake and riding through the scrub, 

 in which we pas.sed a mound-bird's nest {Lcipoa ocellaln), came after some ten miles 

 to another native well called by the blacks Kurtitina. This, just like Untcrpata, 

 is a hole in Travertine. It is however much smaller than the l.itter — ^^just large 

 enough to comfortably allow of a man getting down. The main hole cur\es 

 somewhat and then at a depth of ten feet there lies to one side a smaller hole 

 running down for two feet more in which was a little damp black mud. This w.as 

 scooped out in the hope that a little water might trickle in before our return. 



