WRETCHED STATE OF THE HORSES. 249 
whilst I was to meet him with water in the morning. 
Native fires were seen to the north-east of us at 
night, but the people did not seem to have been at 
the water at the sand-hills for their supply, no traces 
of their having recently visited it being found. 
December 7. — After giving the horses water we 
pat ten gallons upon one of them, and hurried off 
to the animals we had left. The state of those with 
us necessarily made our progress slow, and it was 
four o’clock before we arrived at the place where 
they were, about eleven miles from the water. The 
man had gone on to the furthest of the three, and 
had brought them all nearly together ; upon joining 
him we received the melancholy intelligence, that 
our best draught mare had just breathed her last — 
another lay rolling on the ground in agony — and 
the third appeared but little better. After moisten- 
ing their mouths with water, we made gruel for 
them with flour and water, and gave it to them 
warm : this they drank readily, and appeared much 
revived by it, so that I fully hoped we should save 
both of them. After a little time we gave each 
about four gallons of water, and fed them with all 
the bread we had. We then let them rest and crop 
the withered grass until nine o’clock, hoping, that 
in the cool of the evening, we should succeed in 
getting them to the water, now so few miles away. 
At first moving on, both horses travelled very well 
for two miles, but at the end of the third, one of 
them was unable to go any further, and I left the 
