Even when the lagoon was perfectly dry, and only its parched sandy bed to be seen, the supply from our little well continued undiminished; and it proved more than enough for our wants during the whole of the drought.

I even ventured to provide the distressed birds and animals with some means of quenching their insupportable thirst.

A few yards from the well I constructed a large wooden trough, which I kept filled with water; and each day it was visited by the most extraordinary flocks of birds of every size and variety of plumage--from emus down to what looked like humming-birds.
Huge snakes, ten and fifteen feet long, bustled the kangaroos away from the life-giving trough; and occasionally the crowd would be so excessive that some of the poor creatures would have to wait hours before their thirst was satisfied,--and even die on the outer fringe of the waiting throng.

I remember that even at the time the scene struck me as an amazing and unprecedented one, for there was I doing my best to regulate the traffic, so to speak, sending away the birds and animals and reptiles whose wants had been satisfied, and bringing skins full of water to those who had fallen down from exhaustion, and were in a fair way to die.

As a rule, the creatures took no notice whatever of me, but seemed to realise in some instinctive way that I was their benefactor.