Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
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We Shod The Old Black Mare, Diaway, And Old Buggs, To Take
With Us.
The 18th of February, 1874, was like to have proved a most
eventful day in my life, for it
Was very nearly the termination of it.
I was riding Diaway, the colt just shod; he is seldom ridden, though a
very fine hack, as he is such a splendid weight-carrier as a
packhorse; he is rather skittish, and if anything goes wrong with his
pack, he'll put it right (on the ground) almost instantaneously. I was
driving all the horses up to the camp, when one broke from the mob,
and galloped across the creek. There was a bank of stones about three
feet high, which was hidden by a growth of rushes; Diaway went
bounding over the great bushes and inequalities of the channel, and
reached the bank without seeing it, until too late, when he made a
bound at, but fell on the top of, it, rolling over upon me at the same
time. He scrambled up, but left me on the broad of my back. On my feet
were those wonderful boots before described, with the sixty horseshoe
nails in each, and it was no wonder that one of my feet got caught in
the stirrup on the off side of the horse. It is one of the most
horrible positions that the mind can well imagine, to contemplate
being dragged by a horse. I have been dragged before now, and only
escaped by miracles on each occasion.
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