We Lost Our Dinner, But I Received A Useful Lesson On The Necessity Of Taking Better Care Of The Only

Gun I had left, and being always certain that it was in a fit and serviceable state; I immediately set

To work, cleaned and oiled it, and in the afternoon made some oil-skin covers for the lock and muzzle to keep the damp from it at nights. For the last day or two I had been far from well, whilst my inflamed hand, which was daily getting worse, caused me most excruciating pain, and quite destroyed my rest at nights. In the evening we again retired among the sand-hills to sleep.

May 6. - After breakfast we carefully examined the sand-drifts and the sea-shore, to see if the two boys had passed, but there were no traces of them to be found, and I now felt that we were secure from all further interruption from them. Three days we had been in camp at the water, making altogether a period of six since we last saw them. Had they continued their course to the westward, they must have arrived long before this, and I now felt satisfied that they had turned back to Fowler's Bay for the sake of the provisions buried there, or else they had fallen in with the natives, whose traces we had so repeatedly seen, and either joined them, or been killed by them.

It was now apparent to me beyond all doubt, that in following us on the 30th of April, so far out of the direction they ought to have taken if they intended to go to the eastward, their only object had been to get Wylie to accompany them. As he was the eldest of the three, and a strong full grown man, they would have found him a protection to them from his superior age, strength and skill. As it was they had but little chance of making their way safely either to the east or west. At the time I last saw them they were sixty-three miles from the nearest water in the former direction, and eighty-seven miles from that in the latter. They were tired and exhausted from previous walking, and in this state would have to carry the guns, the provisions, and other things they had taken. This would necessarily retard their progress, and lengthen out the period which must elapse before they could obtain water in any direction. On the night of the 29th April they must have had one gallon of water with them, but when we saw them on the 30th, I have no doubt, that with their usual improvidence, they had consumed the whole, and would thus have to undergo the fatigue of carrying heavy weights, as well as walking for a protracted period, without any thing to relieve their thirst. Their difficulties and distress would gradually but certainly increase upon them, and they would then, in all likelihood, throw away their guns or their provisions, and be left in the desert unarmed, without food or water, and without skill or energy to direct them successfully to search for either.

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