"I have heard," said Harry, "that a great part of Australia is destitute of water. Is that really the case?"
"Yes," the gentleman answered; "you have been correctly informed. Australia, is a waterless country, or, at any rate, that is the case with a great part of it. The interior has never been fully explored for this reason, and there are thousands, I might say millions, of square miles of Australian country where no human foot has ever trod. Many attempts have been made to penetrate this desolate region, but all have resulted in failure.
"Water, as you know, is an absolute necessity for man and animals, and there is a limit to the amount which an expedition can carry, just as there is a limit to the food that one may take on a journey. There are parts of Australia where rain seems never to fall, or, if it does, the intervals are so rare and irregular that no reliance can be placed on them. Explorers cannot stop to dig wells hundreds of feet in depth, and it is certain that no ordinary amount of digging will procure water. The atmosphere is dry, terribly dry, as all who have attempted to penetrate into the interior will tell you.
"Instruments, and cases made of the best seasoned wood--wood that has been dried for years and years--crack and split and go to pieces in the dry atmosphere of the interior of Australia. Leather becomes brittle, and cracks and breaks when the slightest pressure is put upon it. One exploring expedition was obliged to turn back in consequence of the drying up and cracking of the wood contained in its instruments and their cases. The evaporation from one's skin is very rapid under such circumstances, and produces an agonizing thirst, which is no doubt intensified by the knowledge of the scarcity of water and the necessity of using the supply on hand with great care."
"I have heard," said Ned, "that Australia is a land of contradictions as compared with England and the United States. I read in a book somewhere that nearly everything in nature was the reverse of what it was in the countries I mentioned."
"That is true," said the gentleman with whom they were conversing, "and I will tell you several things to demonstrate the correctness of what you say. In the first place Australia is on the other side of the world from England and the United States, and that circumstance ought to prepare you for the other peculiarities. Most countries are fertile in their interior; but, as I have told you, the interior of Australia is a land of desolation, where neither man nor beast can live. I have been told that birds never fly in the interior of Australia; and certainly if I were a bird, I would not fly there nor anywhere near it.