Danger of perishing from hunger.

But it required some time before their faculties were sufficiently recovered to allow them duly to estimate the magnitude of the danger they had escaped.  The small portion of muddy water in the hole was soon finished, and then by scraping it out clean we found that water began slowly to trickle into it again.  The men now laid themselves down almost in a state of stupefaction, and rested by their treasured pool.  I felt however that great calls upon my energies might still arise, and therefore, retiring a little apart with the native, I first of all returned hearty thanks to my Maker for the dangers and sufferings he had thus brought me through, and then tottered on with my gun in search of food.  As might have been expected, game was here plentiful:  numerous pigeons and other birds came down at nightfall (which was now the hour) for the purpose of drinking at this lone pool, and the numbers of birds of different kinds that congregated here was a most convincing proof of the general aridity of this part of the country.  Indeed the natives subsequently reported that the tract we had just traversed was at this season of the year totally devoid of water.  It was in vain now that I raised the gun, for my tremulous hand shook so that I could not for a moment cover the bird I aimed at, and after one or two ineffectual attempts to kill something I was obliged to desist in despair.

Pangs of hunger.

I now dreaded that I had only escaped the pains of death by thirst in order to perish of hunger, and for a moment regretted that I had not died ere I found water, for I firmly believed, from the state of weakness I was then reduced to, that the bitterness of death had passed.  But a short period sufficed to smother these unmanly and unchristian feelings in my breast, and, seeing a flight of black cockatoos soaring about in the air, I determined to watch them to their roosting-place, and then favoured by the darkness of night to steal upon them.  On my return to the party I found the men sitting by the hole of water, anxiously watching until they again saw a little black mud in it, which they then eagerly swallowed.

I found some difficulty in inducing them to light their fire and to choose a situation where they could repose for the night, but, having accomplished this, I sat down by my own, hand-rubbing my limbs until it should grow rather darker.  At length I had the pleasure of seeing that the black cockatoos, who found we were not likely to leave them in possession of the water, had taken up their position for the night in a large clump of trees distant not more than half a mile, and I hereupon started with Kaiber to try and get a shot at them.

Shoot and cook A cockatoo.

After about an hour’s wandering and excitement such only as the desperate gambler can know whose life depends upon the stake for which he plays, I succeeded in getting a shot into a whole flight of roosting and snoring black cockatoos, and one fell.  I pounced in triumph on it and received a bite which, famishing as I was, somewhat damped my ardour; Kaiber however hit it upon the head with a stick, and we then bore it off to our fire.