On Reaching The Little Cob We Found Him Stark And Stiff, His Hide All Shrivelled And Wrinkled, Mouth Wide Open, And Lips Drawn Back To An Extraordinary Extent.

Pushing on we arrived where Diamond and Pratt had fallen.

They also were quite dead, and must have died immediately after they fell; they presented the same appearance as the little cob. Thus my visit to the North-west Mountain had cost the lives of four horses, Bluey, Diamond, Pratt, and the cob. The distance they had to travel was not great - less than ninety miles - and they were only two nights without water; but the heat was intense, the country frightful, and to get over the distance as soon as possible, we may have travelled rather fast. The horses had not been well off for either grass or water at starting, and they were mostly footsore; but in the best of cases, and under the most favourable start from a water, the ephemeral thread of a horse's life may be snapped in a moment, in the height of an Australian summer, in such a region as this, where that detestable vegetation, the triodia, and high and rolling sandhills exist for such enormous distances. The very sight of the country, in all its hideous terrors clad, is sufficient to daunt a man and kill a horse. I called the vile mountain which had caused me this disaster, Mount Destruction, for a visit to it had destroyed alike my horses and my hopes.

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