332 
THE CLIFFS RECEDE. 
what I ought to do. We were now many miles 
past these hills, and if we went back to examine 
them for water, and did not find it, we could never 
hope that our horses would be able to return again 
to search elsewhere ; whilst if there was water there, 
and we did not return, every step we took would but 
carry us further from it, and lead to our certain 
destruction. 
For a few minutes I carefully scanned the line of 
coast before me. In the distance beyond a project- 
ing point of the cliffs, I fancied I discerned a low 
sandy shore, and my mind was made up at once, to 
advance in the line we were pursuing. After a 
little while, we again came to a well beaten native 
pathway, and following this along the summit of 
the cliffs, were brought by it, in seven miles, to the 
point where they receded from the sea-shore ; as 
they inclined inland, leaving a low sandy country 
between them and some high bare sand-hills near the 
sea. The road now led us down a very rocky steep 
part of the cliffs, near the angle where they broke 
away from the beach, but upon reaching the bottom 
we lost it altogether on the sandy shore ; following 
along by the water’s edge, we felt cooled and re- 
freshed by the sea air, and in one mile and a half 
from where we had descended the cliffs, we reached 
the white sand-drifts. Upon turning into these to 
search for water, we were fortunate enough to strike 
the very place where the natives had dug little wells ; 
and thus on the fifth day of our sufferings, we were 
