Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/153

 enacted again, and conjure up happy faces never to be seen any more, and old associations—till you get lost in thought, and so the night slips, or rather glides, away, till I rouse my relief and let him take a spell. But enough of this, and I should not have written it, only that it is very hot, and I am in a queer temper.

15th. Our native friend, with two women, came into camp to-day, and brought another male native; very friendly. They got their dinners, and slept at the camp—rather cold, I should think, as neither man nor woman had the slightest covering; the men, perhaps, with a belt of hair plaited round their waists. These are from Lake Perigundi, or Lake Siva. This new chap has a most hang-dog look about him; the other native is not so bad-looking. The ladies, of course, quite nude. If they went as the Turkish women do, faces and all covered, it would be an improvement. One of them, say sixteen; the other quite a girl, scarcely twelve years old. I dare say, as they have their lubras with them, that the men may remain in camp some time.

16th. At daylight the thermometer was 63°; at 2 it was up to 140°; heat intense; no breeze. Some natives fishing this afternoon on the opposite side of the lake. One is with us, making a net of the rushes that abound round us. They use no mesh, but the first two fingers of