HORN EXl'KDITION — NAKUATIVE. 91 



At the entrance to the ravine wei'e two trees marked re.six'etively — and 



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and this showetl us that we wei'e in Tietken's old caminnL! ijround. We eanie 



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across the remains of boxes which were evidently the relics of the four left 

 behind by Mr. Tiekens in 1889 ; there was no trace ti) be found of the caiuul 

 pack-saddles which he left, though possibly a bar of iron which we saw in a 

 black's camp neai' the rock may have been oljtained from them. In the scrub we 

 saw on the hard sandy ground undoubted traces of his camel tracks. 



A gum creek flows away into the sandhill country out to the south-west, ))ut 

 here again there is no such thing as peruianent water ; there was evidently much 

 less than when Giles and Tietkens visited the rock. The blacks assured us that 

 the only watei' anywhere at the time of our visit aljout Mount Olga was to be 

 found where we were camped, and leading our horses over the smooth rocks 

 forming the floor of the rapidly narrowing ravine, which was in all about a 

 quarter of a mile in length, we came upon a solitary small pool. It was just a 

 rock-pool with no permanent supply and evidently could not last much longer 

 unless replenished by rains, and we were thankful to find enough to water the 

 horses. It is of cour.se quite possible that there were other small pools which the 

 blacks discreetly said nothing about, but there is certainly no permanent water ; 

 the pools described by Griles and Tietkens were at the time of our visit either 

 dried up or much smaller than when they visited Mount Olga, at which time a 

 stream was llowing over the rocky Ijed and out on to the loamy Hats beyond, but 

 now except just for this one pool everything was as dry as possible. 



In certain respects Mount Olga is almost more impressive than Ayers Hock : 

 it has the form of a nundjer of huge masses like the latter thrown together and 

 separated from oiie another by deep ravines. The rock in each case has weathered 

 into smooth, dome-like structures, and these I'ise perpendicularly to a height of 

 1500 feet directly above the flat phiins which surround them, so that they appear 

 to be much higher than they really are. 



Unlike Ayers Hock, which is composed of sandstone which has undergone a 

 considerable amount of metamorphosis until now it has a striking resendjlance to 

 a granite. Mount Olga is made up of a coarse conglomerate and is probably ycjunger 

 in age than Ayei-s Rock. 



Whilst riding across between the two we had suddenly emerged from a belt 

 of scrub into a patch of more open ground and came upon a small camp of blacks 

 living in their " wurlies," each of which was simply a lean-to made of branches 

 which served as a protection from the weather. These sandhill blacks had nevei' 



