78 DISTRESS FROM M'ANT OF WATER. 
We left the camp on the 26th, accompanied by Hopkin- 
son and the tinker ; and, almost immediately after, entered 
an acacia scrub of the most sterile description, and one, 
through which it would have been impossible to have 
found a passage for the boat carriage. The soil was 
almost a pure sand, and the lower branches of the trees 
were decayed so generally as to give the whole an inde- 
scribable appearance of desolation. About mid-day, we 
crossed a light sandy plain, on which there were some 
dirty puddles of water. They were so shallow as to leave 
the backs of the frogs in them exposed, and they had, in 
consequence, been destroyed by solar heat, and were in a 
state of putrefaction. Our horses refused to drink, but it 
was evident that some natives must have partaken of this 
sickening beverage only a few hours before our arrival. 
Indeed, it was clear that a wandering family must have 
slept near this spot, as we observed a fresh made gunneah 
(or native hut), and their foot-prints were so fresh along the 
line we were pursuing, that we momentarily expected to have 
overtaken them. It was late in the evening when we got 
out of this brush into better and more open ground, where, 
in ordinary seasons we should, no doubt, have found 
abundance of water. But we now searched in vain for it, 
and were contented to be enabled to give our wearied 
animals better food than they had tasted for many days, 
the forest grass, though in tufts, being abundant. 
We brought up for the night at the edge of a scrub, 
having travelled from thirty-two to thirty-five miles, judging 
