As We Saw No Game, Their Principal
Prey Must Be Rats, Which Have Almost Undermined This Loose Sandy
Country.
As we had brought a small keg of water with us, we did not on this
occasion suffer absolute want:
We hope that the instinct of the horses
would lead them to water in the course of the night - but we were too
sanguine.
Our spirits were not a little depressed by the desolation and want that
seemed to reign around us: the scene was never varied, except from bad
to worse. However, the scarcity of water and grass for the horses are
our greatest real privations, for the temperature is mild and equable
beyond what could be expected at this season, and it is this
circumstance alone that enables us to proceed: the horses are too much
reduced to endure rainy weather, even if the loose soil of the country
would permit us to travel over it.
June 8. - During the night there was light rain. At daylight sent out in
search of water, but all our efforts proved unsuccessful. Peel's range
being the nearest high land, I determined to search the base of it, in
hopes of finding water, since it was impossible that either men or
horses could long endure this almost constant privation of the first
necessary of life. I accordingly set off towards the range, but was
prevented from making it by impenetrable scrubs: we then returned to the
range a little to the west of the tent, whence we could see a
considerable distance to the west and north-west; it is impossible to
imagine a prospect more desolate.
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