166 THE SWAN RIVER DISTRICT 



our abundance. Yet it was impossible to move forward 

 that day, unless we abandoned much valuable substance. 

 It was desirable also to recover if possible the lost horses, 

 which were two of the best riding animals. The boys 

 were sent away to track them down, while Hamblin and I 

 undid the soaked stores, and spread them out to dry. 

 This they did in the course of the day, for the sun shone 

 powerfully ; and from the icy coldness of midnight, the 

 temperature rose to almost tropical heat at mid-day. 

 The land was concealed by a thick mist, arising, I suppose, 

 from the evaporation of the surface water. 



It was not until nearly sunset that Chuckabe and 

 Whiteboy returned to the camp. They brought one horse 

 with them ; the other, as shown by its tracks, had made a 

 straight line back in the direction we had come. It was, 

 therefore, hopeless to think of recovering it, and conse- 

 quently we had to leave about sixty pounds weight of 

 stores behind. These were all much damaged ; but they 

 were buried in the sand, and a mark set up, in case we 

 should have to return, though it was probable that the 

 natives would find these goods in a very short space of time, 

 those remarkable men having such extraordinary powers 

 of tracking, that I believe if a pin were dropped in the 

 desert, they might be relied on to find it. 



By the next morning the ground was nearly as dry as 

 before the fall of rain ; but some of our things were still 

 too damp to be packed, and there were other reasons 

 which induced us to rest another day, and it was not until 

 the morning of the 30th April that we resumed our way, 

 still travelling in a north-east direction. 



In the course of the day we passed several old water- 

 holes or wells, which had been dug by the natives, and 

 which were four or five feet deep and were now full to the 

 brim. The pools of yesterday had all disappeared, leaving 

 circular-shaped patches of mud where they had been 

 deepest. There was nothing to denote why these depres- 

 sions, which never exceeded a few inches in depth, were so 

 uniformly of a round form ; but for many miles the plain 

 was thickly covered with these saucer-like depressions, 



