TO THE OVERSEER’S DEATH. 27 
departure, but this might have been without any 
premeditated intention of making use of them in the 
way they did. At this unhappy juncture it would 
seem that the overseer must have awoke, and 
advanced towards them to see what was the matter* 
or to put a stop to their proceedings, when they 
fired on him, to save themselves from being caught 
in their act of plunder. That either of the two 
should have contemplated the committal of a wilful, 
barbarous, cold-blooded murder, I cannot bring 
myself to believe — no object was to be attained by 
it ; and the fact of the overseer having been pierced 
through the breast, and many yards in advance of 
where he had been sleeping, in a direction towards 
the sleeping-place of the natives, clearly indicated 
that it was not until he had arisen from his sleep, 
and had been closely pressing upon them, that they 
had fired the fatal shot. Such appeared to me to be 
the most plausible and rational explanation of 
this melancholy affair— I would willingly believe 
it to be the true one. 
Wylie and I moved on in the evening, with the 
horses for two miles, and again pitched our camp 
among the sand-drifts, at a place where the natives 
were in the habit of digging wells for water, and 
where we procured it at a very moderate depth below 
the surface. Pigeons were here in great numbers, 
and Wylie tried several times with the rifle to shoot 
them, but only killed one, the grooved barrel not 
being adapted for throwing shot with effect. 
