Trouble in getting the horses to the camp.

On arriving there I found Mr. Lushington already on shore and some of the horses disembarked.  They were not only well selected for the purpose, but were generally in good condition.  They had however two faults which could not have been avoided, and these were that they were very small and perfectly wild.  By about two o’clock in the afternoon the whole twenty-six had been swum ashore, and we started for the huts.

Our progress was however slow; for, as there were only a few of us, each person was obliged to take charge of three or four of these untamed, unbroken brutes.  The mode we adopted was to fasten them together by long ropes so that the number each man led could follow in a line; but, being wholly unused to this kind of discipline, they strenuously resisted it, biting and kicking at one another with the greatest ferocity; and as they were chiefly very courageous little entire horses, a variety of spirited contests took place, much to their own satisfaction, but to my infinite chagrin.  Some of the men who were not much accustomed to horses regarded these wild ponies as being but little better than savage monsters, with whom it was dangerous to have anything to do; and, being thus rather afraid of them, treated them very cruelly, kicking them often with great violence whenever I for a moment looked away, and thus naturally rendering the ponies still more wild.

But even when we did induce these brutes to move along pacifically they would not follow one another in a line, but all strove to go in different directions, and, as our road lay through a rocky forest, the consequence of this pulling was that the connecting ropes kept on getting entangled in rocks and trees; indeed there was scarcely an instance of two of them passing on the same side of a tree or rock at the first attempt, so that we were continually halting to clear their tether ropes; again, one of the beasts would now and then become obstinate, refuse to move, and this delayed us all; for I would not allow the party to separate for fear of the natives.  In consequence of all these adverse circumstances at sunset we had scarcely got half-way to the encampment; and just at this period one pony became and remained so obstinate that, in despair, I had it tied up to a tree alone.  We now moved on again as fast as we could, but night soon surprised us, and, when it became too dark to see our course, we tethered our horses and laid down in the forest by them; but as it rained, and we had neither warm clothes nor covering, and many of the party had tasted nothing since dawn, our situation was not very pleasant; indeed, the combined circumstances of cold, hunger, and obstinate ponies had rendered some of the men more crabbed than I had ever before seen them.

January 19.