Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/192

 i66 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY The Railway-Builders with those of Warburton, Stuart, or Sturt. Forrest, a son of the soil, knew his country, and it treated him with more generosity than it did most others. When he had pushed hundreds of miles into the deserts, so far that he could not retreat, his situation became grave. All his bush knowledge, and that of his companions, could not find sufficient water on the onward route. Before him was the western fringe of the desert that drove back Giles and Gosse. Behind the horses had drank up nearly all the water in the springs and natural reservoirs. To retreat was as dangerous as to push on. Wrote Forrest in his journal: — "The thought of having to return brought every feeling of energy and determination to my rescue, and I felt that, with God's help, I would even now succeed." The men were reduced to short rations, and every preparation was made "for a last desperate struggle." Then came a timely fall of rain, and the forbidding stretch was traversed. "I need not add," remarked Forrest in his journal, "how pleased all were at having at last bridged over that awful, desolate spinifex desert." On September 27, 1874, as it rounded a clump of trees, the party sighted the overland telegraph line, at which there were cheers and exclamations of gratitude. The subsequent journey to Adelaide was soon comjjleted, and in the city the discreet and able explorer was given a royal welcome. With his horses Forrest had accomplished what Giles and Gosse could not do, and made his journey in much shorter time, and with greater ease than Warburton with his camels. Ernest Giles, than whom no explorer was more enthusiastic, went out again after the brilliant achievements of Forrest. In August, 1875, he left Ouldabinna with camels for the west, his object being to cover new country much to the south of Forrest's track. Giles went west by south, and entered what appeared a limitless ocean-desert. He determined to cross it at all hazards, and so he pushed straight on, hardly diverging a mile from his course. The farther he went, the more certain did an early death seem. " Not a soul thought of retreating," said Giles afterwards, and yet the horizon afforded no glimpse to encourage. "The desert," said one writer, "was majestic in its melancholy and desolation." Here was an illusive salt lagoon ; here a waste of spinifex ; and here a dwarfed and half-dead scrub. There was no sign of life anywhere. At last the camels had gone 325 miles without water, and were showing serious signs of exhaustion ; it was unlikely that they could hold out much longer. Tommy, a native, walked ahead of the band, watching closely for those natural evidences which indicate the presence of water. He caught sight of an emu, and followed it to the top of a ridge ; on the other side he observed a grassy tract ornamented with pine trees. Still following the emu, he descended the hill, and in the hollow found a spring of pure water. The relief from anxiety, and the joy of Giles and his companions, can be imagined. The oasis saved them, and Giles named it Victoria Spring, after the Queen. A course was then made north of the present goldfields of Broad Arrow and Siberia, and Perth was reached without difficulty. Giles was not yet satisfied, and he crossed the huge deserts to South Australia on another route — north of Forrest's. No serious difficulties assailed him on this occasion, but no extensive country of commercial value was discovered by Warburton, Forrest, or Giles on these journeys.