seemed anxious to drink, but one bucketful was all he could manage.  There was not more than five or six buckets of water in this hole; it made me quite sick to get the bucketful for the horse.  There were a few hundred acres of silver grass in the little valley near, and as my horse began to feed with an apparent relish, I remained here, though I anticipated at any moment seeing a number of natives make their appearance.  I said to myself, “Come one, come all, this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I.”  No enemies came, and I passed the night with my horse feeding quietly close to where I lay.  To this I attributed my safety.

Long before sunrise I was away from this dismal place, not giving my horse any more of the disgusting water.  In a mile or two I came to the top of one of those undulations which at various distances bound the horizon.  They are but swells a little higher than the rest of the country.  How far this formation would extend was the question, and what other feature that lay beyond, at which water could be obtained, was a difficult problem to solve.  From its appearance I was compelled to suppose that it would remain unaltered for a very considerable distance.  From this rise all I could see was another; this I reached in nine miles.  Nearly all the country hereabout had been burnt, but not very recently.  The ground was still covered with gravel, with here and there small patches of scrub, the country in general being very good for travelling.  I felt sure it would be necessary to travel 150 miles at least before a watered spot could be found.  How ardently I wished for a camel; for what is a horse where waters do not exist except at great distances apart?  I pushed on to the next rising ground, ten miles, being nearly twenty from where I had camped.  The view from here was precisely similar to the former ones.  My horse had not travelled well this morning, he seemed to possess but little pluck.  Although he was fat yesterday, he is literally poor now.  This horse’s name was Pratt; he was a poor weak creature, and died subsequently from thirst.  I am afraid the putrid water has made him ill, for I have had great difficulty in getting him to go.  I turned him out here for an hour at eleven o’clock, when the thermometer indicated 102 degrees in the shade.  The horse simply stood in the shade of a small belt of mulga, but he would not try to eat.  To the south about a mile there was apparently a more solid rise, and I walked over to it, but there was no cup either to cheer or inebriate.  I was now over fifty miles from my water-bag, which was hanging in a tree at the mercy of the winds and waves, not to mention its removal by natives, and if I lost that I should probably lose my life as well.  I was now ninety miles from the Shoeing Camp, and unless I was prepared to go on for another hundred miles; ten, fifteen, twenty, or fifty would be of little or no use.  It was as much as my horse would do to get back alive.