PAINFUL REFLECTIONS. 
19 
and that there was every hope of our progress for the 
future, being both less difficult and more expeditious. 
How delighted he would have been had he been 
with us to participate in the successful termina- 
tion of a stage, which he had ever dreaded more 
than any other during the whole of our journey, and 
with what confidence and cheerfulness he would 
have gone on for the future. Out of five two only 
were now present ; our little band had been severed 
never to be reunited; and I could not but blame 
myself for yielding to the overseer’s solicitation to 
halt on the evening of the 29th April, instead of 
travelling on all night as I had originally intended : 
had I adhered to my own judgment all might yet 
have been well. Vain and bootless, however, now 
were all regrets for the irrecoverable past ; but the 
present was so fraught with circumstances calculated 
to recal and to make me feel more bitterly the loss 
I had sustained, that painful as the subject was, the 
mind could not help reverting to and dwelling 
upon it. 
Having given each of the horses a bucket of 
water, Wylie watched them whilst I cooked our 
dinner and made some tea, after getting which we 
again gave the horses another bucket of water 
a-piece, hobbled them out for the night, and then 
lay down ourselves, feeling perfectly secure from 
being overtaken by the native boys. W^e were 
obliged to place ourselves close to the hole of water 
to keep the horses from getting into it, as they were 
c 2 
