Nearer To The Sand-Hills We Obtained Excellent Water By Digging, At A Depth Of Five Feet, And Only Half A Mile Away From The Grass.

This place was too favourable not to be made the most of, and I determined to halt for a day or two to give our horses the benefit of it, and to enable us to diminish the weight of meat they had to carry.

Whilst here I gave Wylie free permission to eat as much as he could, - a privilege which he was not long in turning to account. Between last night's supper and this morning's breakfast he had got through six-and-a-half pounds of solid cooked flesh, weighed out and free from bone, and he then complained, that as he had so little water (the well had fallen in and he did not like the trouble of cleaning it out again), he could hardly eat at all. On an average he would consume nine pounds of meat per day. I used myself from two to three when undergoing very great exertions. After dinner I ascended one of the sand-hills, and set the hill I had seen in the morning at W. 17 degrees S.

May 12. - I intended this morning to have walked down to the beach, but was suddenly taken ill with similar symptoms to those I had experienced on the 19th, and 21st of April; and, as formerly, I attributed the illness entirely to the unwholesome nature of the meat diet. Wylie was ill too, but not to so great a degree; nor was I surprised at his complaining; indeed, it would have been wonderful if he had not, considering the enormous quantity of horse flesh that he daily devoured. After his feasts, he would lie down, and roll and groan, and say he was "mendyt" (ill) and nothing would induce him to get up, or to do any thing. There were now plenty of sting-ray fish along the beach again, and I was desirous, if possible, to get one for a change of diet; my friend, however, had so much to eat, that though he said he should like fish too, I could not get him to go about a mile to the back of the sand-hills, to cut a stick from the scrub, to make a spear for catching them.

May 13. - After breakfast, Wylie said he thought he could catch some bandicoots, by firing the scrub near the sand-hills, and went out for an hour or two to try, but came back as he went. During his absence, I was employed in repairing my only two pair of socks now left, which were sadly dilapidated, but of which I was obliged to be very careful, as they were the only security I had against getting lame. In the afternoon I walked down to the beach, to try to spear sting-ray, but the sea was rough, and I saw none. In my ramble, I found plenty of the beautiful white clematis, so common both to the north and south of Sydney.

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