...meat and after walking about 12 miles in a semi-circle I collected one wallaby which again relieved the position.
Today Larnach got a skull and a couple of emu heads while the natives brought in a euro. With all this exercise over the country in the heat and with plenty of swimming and good tucker I am getting into first class condition now and certainly don't notice the heat at all either in discomfort or water intake.
Sunday 29th Jan
Another trip after meat met with great success as about four miles out I got a long shot at an old man euro who kindly died of loss of blood from the lungs. I had gone due south in nondescript country and found a cave in a small outcrop about a hundred yards from a stony watercourse winding up a low hill. The cave was very deep and very dark and there was a lot of possum and wallaby dung about. I could see very little inside but I could hear some form of life scuffling about at the back of the cave. I was about to try a blind shot from the mouth of the cave when I saw two large euros coming slowly up the creek bed. He was too heavy for me to lift, so I went back to get Murch to help me skin and dismember him and carry him back.
He was very reluctant and I had to lie through my teeth about the distance involved. I pointed out the state of our larder and the necessity to keep Hezekiel happy and the natives co-operative by our largesse. I had remembered to carry a water bag for him but by the time we had got half way there he was lagging. He complained of sore feet and was very difficult. When we were about a mile away from the carcass he jacked up. I left him with the water bag, intending to collect as much as I could manage and pick him up on the way back.
I was half way through skinning and dismembering when he turned up apologetic and even interested in the internal anatomy of the animal. He manfully shouldered a load of meat and set off while I bundled up as much of the rest as I thought I could manage. Even with half each in a bag he was a big weight to carry four miles over rocky country Murch made a surprisingly good pace, like a horse going home, and we arrived back together very amicable. I enjoyed a swim very much when we got back.
The day was successful in other directions as well as dingo skulls began to come in as well as bilbies and kangaroo rats with the inevitable lizards. The day was successful in other directions as well, as the natives brought in dingo skulls, bilbees, kangaroo rats and all sorts of lizards. The geckos or `desert dragons' are very beautiful, can change colour like a chameleon, absorb water through their skins like blotting paper and are quite harmless. I was fascinated by them and thought them the nicest things in this country. Larnach was back from Titus' camp with more specimens. He took over the butchering and neatly dissected the corpse and then distributed the large surplus to our needs to Hezekiel and to the native camp where they showed great pleasure. Meanwhile, Murch and I wallowed in the water and I saw that his feet were rather badly blistered. I prescribed potassium permanganate, in the army style, and my technique of two pairs of socks at all times, which stood me in good stead. In the evening we gorged ourselves on meat roast and in a stew and gave the camel boy enough to burst him.
