46 NICHOLLS, A Trip to Central Australia. [ ut juT y u 
At Hergott Springs (Hergolt, a German, was a companion of 
McDougall Stuart in 1859 on his first northern trip), we left the 
Great Northern Line, and the same day, after a journey across 
the stony “gibber plains” and salt-bush, crossed the Cooper some 
160 miles away. At the time of our visit it was a tree-lined 
watercourse, three miles in width, its dry, sandy bed covered with 
a growth of lignum, needle-bush, samphire, salt-bush, buckbush, 
and Coolibah. There was a thin trickle of water in the centre, 
the overflow from an artesian bore, which petered out in the 
sands a few hundred yards from where we crossed. In flood 
time the river, overflowing its banks, is fifty miles wide in places. 
Captain Sturt—that wonderful man who ran the Castlereagh, the 
Darling, the Murray, the Murrumbidgee, the Macquarie, and the 
Lachlan to their terminations — discovered Cooper’s Creek in 
1844, naming it after Judge Cooper, of Adelaide. He described 
it as consisting “of water deep blue indigo in colour, stretching 
for miles, with Cormorants, Pelicans and Seagulls perched along 
its banks.” We saw no blue water or waterbirds here, but, later 
in the trip, came across a small colony of Seagulls (twelve in 
number), dipping into and settling on the surface of the “blue 
pools” of the Diamentina some 70 miles from the northern end 
of Lake Eyre. Seagulls in Central Australia—the land of sharp 
contrasts and never-ceasing wonders! 
Once past the Cooper we left the “gibber” stones and ran into 
sand-dune country. The going was extremely heavy. Up and 
down over the sandhills 40 to 50 feet high, ran the car, the 
wheels, rapidly twisting and turning, throwing up sprays of sand 
resembling the light wind-driven spume from the cut waves of 
a racing destroyer. At times we all alighted and helped the 
engine over the heavy sand, and once the mail man (Harry 
Russell) got out of the car and led it down the hill with the 
engine running at full speed, walking alongside the tvhile, and 
giving the wheel an occasional twist. Late that afternoon there 
'was a crack as the back axle snapped in two. The wheels sank 
up to the hubs, and, after digging the sand from underneath, 
the car was “jacked up,” and the spare axle refitted in two hours. 
Meantime I went out with a small collecting gun, and secured a 
few specimens for the Museum. 
The dunes are covered with cane grass, a kind of Spinifex, a 
yellow flowering broom, and Stuart’s Desert Pea,this last having 
a bird-shaped flower, green in colour. The sandhills are not as 
barren and destitute of life as they appeared. Wood-Swallows 
(Artamus cinereus), flying from bush-top to bush-top, with, at 
times, a peculiar hovering flight, were very numerous, as were 
also the desert Grass Wrens ( Diaphorillas modcsta and D. 
striata), and Cinnamon Quail-Thrushes (Ground-birds). The 
ground was riddled with the holes of rabbits and native animals, 
the marsupials burrowing an almost vertical shaft, whilst the 
