Quite of his own accord, also, he would go through his whole repertoire of tumbling tricks; and whenever the girls returned to camp from their little wanderings, with bare legs bleeding from the prickles, Bruno would lick their wounds and manifest every token of sympathy and affection.
Of course, after leaving the native encampment, it was several weeks before we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine stream for many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusing ourselves, time being no object.

I have, by the way, seen enormous shoals of fish in this river--mainly mullet--which can only be compared to the vast swarms of salmon seen in the rivers of British Columbia.
We came across many isolated hills on our way to the river, and these delayed us very considerably, because we had to go round them.

Here, again, there was an abundance of food, but the girls did not take very kindly to the various meats, greatly preferring the roots which Yamba collected.

We came upon fields of wild rice, which, apart from any other consideration, lent great beauty to the landscape, covering the country with a pinkish-white blossom.

We forced ourselves to get used to the rice, although it was very insipid without either salt or sugar.
Sometimes, during our down-river journey, we were obliged to camp for days and nights without making any progress.