HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
65 
A somewhat similar experience met our party on the overland journey from 
Port Darwin, where, on camping for the night at a certain well, which had been 
sunk by Government for the convenience of travellers, the first bucket drawn 
brought up a portion of the decomposing entrails of a beast, probably a wild dog. 
Fortunately, in these arid regions, the precarious supply from natural sources 
is supplemented by the fluid which can be obtained from the roots of certain trees, 
and this is in dry seasons made use of by the blacks. By cutting or breaking off 
segments of roots, about the size of the wrist and under, and allowing them to drain 
into vessels or directly into the mouth, it is stated that a very coixsiderable amount 
of limpid fluid can be obtained, and the accounts of explorers contain numerous 
references to the fact. 
Of the trees whose roots are ,so utilised the “ needle bush ” {Hakea leucoptera), 
perhaps, enjoys the best reputation as a water-bearing tree. The roots of a 
Currajong [Brachychiton Gregorii), and of the Desert Oak {Casuarina Decaisnea7ia\ 
both trees met with in a wide belt of dry sand-hill country, are stated to be thus 
used. Certain eucalypts are also similarly mentioned in this respect, and of those 
met with in the districts visited, Encalyphis oleosa, E. tenninalis, E. gaoiophylla 
and E. eudesinoides, may, probably, serve a like purpose. There are other 
eucalypts also which, in other localities, enjoy a similar reputation, but I am 
unable to speak from personal experience on this subject. 
Natural hollows in trees also occasionally afford a certain amount of water 
which has collected. Mr. Helms (Rep. Elder Expl. Exped.) records the use of an 
improvised suction tube, made of the loosened bark of a twig of a quondong tree, 
(^Santaluin sp.) to obtain water from such a situation. As we have in the South 
Australian Museum a similar article from Fowler’s Bay formed out of an 
artificially hollowed wooden stem, fourteen inches in length and three-quarters of 
an inch in diameter, the use of such a tube may be common in dry regions. 
The succulent “Parakylia” (Claytonia, spp.) is also capable of assuaging thirst 
in man as it is in animals. 
Mention has already been made of the water-holding frogs, which contain 
sufficient fluid to be of material use for thirst-quenching purposes. 
Though no such work came under our own observation I feel constrained to 
o 
mention, when so much is said of the want of prudential foresight on the part of 
the natives, that the construction of a reservoir by means of a dam of earthwork is 
10 
