midnight
At any rate , this was my experience . During our journey from my home to the shores of the Gulf , I remember coming across a flat country from which the natives had apparently disappeared altogether . When we did come upon them , however , in the high ground I was probably guilty of some little breach of etiquette , such as _ looking _ at the women -- -LRB- for many reasons I always studied the various types in a tribe -RRB- -- and Yamba and I were often in peril of our lives on this account . As a rule , however , safety lay in the fact that the natives are terribly afraid of darkness , and they believe the spirits of the dead roam abroad in the midnight hours . Month after month we continued our progress in a southerly direction , although , as I have said before , we often turned north-east and even due west , following the valleys when stopped by the ranges -- where , by the way , we usually found turkeys in great numbers . We had water-bags made out of the skins of kangaroos and wallabies , and would camp wherever possible close to a native well , where we knew food was to be found in plenty . At this period I noticed that the more easterly I went , the more ranges I encountered ; whilst the somewhat dreary and mostly waterless lowland lay to the west .