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 Had One Unfortunate Horse Left, The Grey Called Formby,
And That Poor Creature Held Out As Long And On As Little Water As I Am
Sure Is Possible In Such A Heated And Horrid Region.
On the following
morning the poor beast came up to Nicholls and I, old Jimmy being
after the camels
Which were close by, and began to smell us, then
stood gazing vacantly at the fire; a thought seemed to strike him that
it was water, and he put his mouth down into the flames. This idea
seems to actuate all animals when in the last stage of thirst. We were
choking with thirst ourselves, but we agreed to sacrifice a small
billyful of our remaining stock of water for this unfortunate last
victim to our enterprise. We gave him about two quarts, and bitterly
we regretted it later, hoping he might still be able to stagger on to
where water might be found; but vain was the hope and vain the gift,
for the creature that had held up so long and so well, swallowed up
the last little draught we gave, fell down and rolled and shivered in
agony, as Chester had done, and he died and was at rest. A singular
thing about this horse was that his eyes had sunk into his head until
they were all but hidden. For my own part, in such a region and in
such a predicament as we were placed, I would not unwillingly have
followed him into the future.
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