By steady perseverance, we gained the place where our little keg
had been buried; and having refreshed ourselves with a little tea, again
pushed on for a few miles to a place where I had appointed the overseer
to send a native to meet us with water. He was already there, and we all
encamped together for the night, soon forgetting, in refreshing sleep,
the fatigues and labours of the day.
The 13th was a dark cloudy day, with light rains in the morning. About
noon we arrived at the camp, after having walked seventy-six miles in the
last three days and a half, during great part of which, we had carried
heavy weights. We had, however, successfully accomplished the object for
which we had gone, and had now anxieties only for our future progress,
the provisions and other stores being all safely recovered.
During my absence, I had requested the overseer to bake some bread, in
order that it might be tolerably stale before we used it. To my regret
and annoyance, I found that he had baked one third of our whole supply,
so that it would be necessary to use more than our stated allowance, or
else to let it spoil. It was the more vexing, to think that in this case
the provisions had been so improvidently expended, from the fact of our
having plenty of the sting-ray fish, and not requiring so much bread.
