We still had the little dog.
during our stay at the Charlotte I inquired of a number of the natives for information concerning the region beyond, to the west and north-west.

They often used the words "Larapinta and plenty black fellow." Of the country to the west they seemed to know more, but it was very difficult to get positive statements.

The gist of their information was that there were large waters, high mountains, and plenty, plenty, wild black fellow; they said the wild blacks were very big and fat, and had hair growing, as some said, all down their backs; while others asserted that the hair grew all over their bodies, and that they eat pickaninnies, and sometimes came eastward and killed any of the members of the Charlotte tribe that they could find, and carried off all the women they could catch.

On the 12th we departed, and my intended starting point being Chambers' Pillar, upon the Finke River, I proceeded up the telegraph road as far as the crossing place of the above-named watercourse, which was sixty miles by the road.
(ILLUSTRATION: CHAMBERS' PILLAR.) In the evening of the day we encamped there, a Government party, under the charge of Mr.McMinn, surveyor, and accompanied by Mr.Harley Bacon, a son of Lady Charlotte Bacon, arrived from the north, and we had their company at the camp.

Close to this crossing-place a large tributary joins the Finke near the foot of Mount Humphries.