Page:The Australian explorers.djvu/252

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236
THE AUSTRALIAN EXPLORERS.

the first time on the expedition. They attacked us there, but we managed to drive them off. Mount Churchman was now only 160 miles distant, and we found water again before reaching it. We struck in at Toora, an out-station, where the shepherd was very hospitable. At other homesteads we were most kindly welcomed." By another journey, in a reverse direction, across the western interior, Mr. Giles returned to the central telegraph, which for so long had formed his base of operations. Leaving Perth on the 13th of January, 1876, he pushed north, and struck the Ashburton River, thence passed through 150 miles of desert, and from the opposite side reached the Alfred and Marie Range, from which he had been so piteously thrust back in 1873. He soon after reached the Rawlinson Range, which he had discovered on that same expedition. Being now in a known country, he passed safely through it, and reached the Peak telegraph station on the 23rd of August, 1876. His journey thence to Adelaide was ordinary travel in the Australian bush.