Vol ’i 92 * IV ' ] NICHOLES, A Trip to Central Australia. 47 
rabbits “dig down” on the diagonal. So numerous were the mar¬ 
supial rats, mice, rabbits, bandicoots, lizards, and birds that the 
smooth soft sand was diapered with their tracks in all directions. 
The natives inhabiting these parts dig 90 per cent, of their food 
out of the sand. 
We ran out of the sandhills of the Cooper, and spent the night 
at “Two Wells” homestead, and the next morning were away 
again before daybreak, and once more on the “gibbers,” where 
we disturbed a flock of Galahs feeding, on the ground, before 
the sun was up. As they rose in the air and wheeled all together, 
the rose pink of the under surface glinted for a moment as they 
turned, like the first faint flush of dawn that a few minutes later 
suffused the sky, heralding the coming day. Every day whilst 
tramping the countryside we came across the Galahs in flocks 
of four or five hundred out on the “gibbers” or in the buck-bush 
country. The quantity of seed scattered among the stones and 
sand must- be enormous, for these birds were all fat. They are 
never found more than five miles from water, and are a welcome 
sight to all travellers. All around the bushes, where the birds 
fed were the patterns of their feet, depicting an oval-shaped heel 
and two long toes extended in front. In places the tracks were 
interlaced with those of the dingo and the “pussy cat,” as the 
natives always call the domestic cat run wild, and here very 
often the bushes were be-spattered with feathers. The sand is 
a great telltale, and many stories and tragedies can be read in 
this remarkable land of footprints. One felt grateful that the 
natives considered the “pussy cat” one of their greatest table 
delicacies. At the three-mile post (a heap of bleached bones), 
from Mungeranie we saw a string of hobbled camels silhouetted 
against the sky-line, as they fed, and soon after, we passed the 
water barrels and the packs stacked upon the sunlit sands. The 
Afghan teamsters were still asleep in their blankets. Eater in the 
morning we reached our destination, the home of Mounted- 
Constable S. Aiston. It was set in a compound of rustling 
green-leafed bamboos, with date palms, Persian tamarisk, and 
Coolibahs sheltering the house and the lagoon, a veritable oasis 
of the waste lands. Given artesian water or a two-inch fall of 
rain, the desert blossoms like the rose. 
Each day towards sundown, when travelling, the pack horses 
(half a mile ahead) knowingly halted at every bush or tree, and 
looked back to see if we were going to camp. Presently we 
stop, and back they come at a rush, glad to be rid of their loads 
and saddles. After the sun has gone the ground becomes very 
cold, and more than once the thermometer registered two de¬ 
grees below zero. • Immediately after supper we turn into the 
sleeping bags, and the great silence is broken only by the sound 
of the flames blowing in the wind, the “sizzling” of a green piece 
