316 
OPPORTUNE ARRIVAL 
picking up the baggage they had been carrying, 
scattered about in every direction ; luckily no great 
damage was done, and at sunset we were all as- 
sembled again at the depot, and the animals reloaded. 
Leaving a short note for Mr. Scott, who had gone 
on board the cutter, we again recommenced our 
journey, and, travelling for five miles, halted at the 
well in the plains. I intended to have made a long 
stage, but the night set in so dark that I did not 
like to venture amongst the scrub with the pack- 
horses now they were so fresh, and where, if they 
did get frightened and gallop off, they would cause 
us much greater trouble and delay than they had 
done in the daytime. 
February 26. — Moving on very early, we arrived 
at the grassy plain under the sand-hills, a little after 
three in the afternoon, just in time to save the gun 
and clothes of the black boys, which they had im- 
prudently left there whilst they took the sheep to 
water, a mile and a half away. At the very instant 
of our arrival, a native was prowling about the 
camp, and would, doubtless, soon have carried off 
every thing. Upon examining the place at which 
we had buried our flour on the 31st December, 
and upon which we were now dependent for our 
supply, I found that w r e had only just arrived in time 
to save it from the depredations of the natives ; it 
seems, that having found where the cask containing 
it was buried, and being unable, from its weight, to 
get it out of the ground, they had broken a square 
