"Personally,
I am not an advocate of chaining wild blacks to show water. Unless under
extreme circumstances I would not do so. Experience has taught me that
when under compulsion they will not -- unless very thirsty or a long
distance from other waters -- conduct white people to the best: but
will take them to some soak or rock hole not valued by the tribe. They
will lead a party away from an abundant supply of water, and assert
there is none in that direction… In desert spinifex, gnamma holes and
soaks may be found in patches of scrub mulga, which occur here and there
throughout the interior, generally low-lying formations of granite and
desert sandstone, clothed with weeds, silver grass and scattered small
narrow-leafed salt bush with occasional quondong and kurrajong trees…
Natives, owing to their usual improvidence, filthy habits and want of
brain power, etc., in never looking ahead, can not stand excessive thirst,
like the well trained white man."
H G. Mason Darkest West Australia: A Guide To Out-back TravellersKalgoorlie: Hocking & Co, 1909, pp. 32-34