390 NATIVE BOYS DESERT THE PARTY. 
their appetites or passions, they considered it a hard- 
ship to be obliged to walk as long as any horses 
were left alive, though they saw those horses falling 
behind and perishing from fatigue ; they considered 
it a hardship, too, to be curtailed in their allowance 
of food, as long as a mouthful was left unconsumed; 
and in addition to this, they had imbibed the over- 
seer’s idea that we never should succeed in our 
attempt to get to the westward, and got daily more 
dissatisfied at remaining idle in camp, whilst the 
horses were recruiting. 
The excess of animal food they had had at their 
command for some few days after the horse was 
killed, made them forget their former scarcity, and 
in their folly they imagined that they could supply 
their own wants, and get on better and more rapidly 
than we did, and they determined to attempt it. 
Vexed as I had been at finding out they had not 
scrupled to plunder the small stock of provisions we 
had left, I was loth to let them leave me foolishly 
without making an effort to prevent it. One of them 
had been with me a great length of time, and the other 
I had brought from his country and his friends, and to 
both I felt bound by ties of humanity to prevent if 
possible their taking the rash step they meditated ; 
my remonstrances and expostulations were however 
in vain, and after getting their breakfasts, they took 
up some spears they had been carefully preparing 
for the last two days, and walked sulkily from the 
camp in a westerly direction. The youngest boy 
