Thursday, October 17.
At depot making arrangements for a start; out in search of the water the whites are supposed to be at. I will take with me Mr. Hodgkinson, Middleton, and a native of this country, Bulingani (who seems to say he knows something of the whites) four camels, three horses, one hundred and sixty pounds of flour, thirty-two pounds of sugar, four pounds of tea, eleven pounds of bacon, and some little necessary, etc., for persons likely to be in a weak state. Leave Bell in charge of the arrangements of the camp, Davies in charge of the stores. About twenty natives are encamped within pistol shot; but have made a fold for the sheep and put everything in such a shape that I may find things all right on my return. Opened the sausages and found them all less or more damaged, one tin in fact as nearly rotten as possible, which have to be thrown away; the others are now drying in the sun in the hopes we may be able to use them. We would have been in a sad fix without the sheep.
Friday, October 18.
At 8 a.m. started; crossed well-grassed flooded polygonum flats or plains for an hour, crossing Kiradinte in the Careri Creek; then left the creek on the left and passed over a succession of sand ridges. At 9.15 arrived at Lake Cudye-cudyena at about nine miles. It was quite a treat, abundance of good water, and any quantity of grass of various kinds, and plenty of clover. It bears 345 degrees, is about six miles long, and fully half a mile wide, well timbered. On a bearing from this southern end of lake (now called