240 
HORSE KNOCKED UP. 
steps of a party of native women and children, 
among some bare sand-drifts, hoping the track 
would lead to water ; but the party seemed to have 
been rambling about without any fixed object, and 
all our efforts to find water were in vain ; the whole 
surface of the country, (except where it w r as hidden 
by the sand-drifts) was one sheet of limestone crust, 
and wherever we attempted to dig among the sand- 
drifts, the rock invariably stopped us. 
As it was getting on towards evening, I returned 
to where I had left the dray, and giving each of the 
horses one bucket of water and five pints of oats, 
was obliged to have them tied for the night, myself 
and the man being too much fatigued to watch 
them. 
December 2. — We had not moved far upon our 
return, when one of our most valuable dray-horses 
became completely overdone with fatigue, and I was 
obliged to take it out of the team and put in a 
riding horse, to try, if possible, to reach the plains 
where the grass was. We just got to the borders of 
this open patch of country, when the poor animal 
(a mare) could not be got a yard farther, and we 
were compelled to halt and decide upon what was 
best to be done. The water in the cask was nearly 
all consumed, the mare could not stir, and the other 
horses were very weak, so that no time was to be 
lost ; I immediately decided upon leaving the man 
to take care of the mare and the dray, whilst I and 
the native boy took the other horses back for more 
