it had left off work for the day.  This shower has quite reanimated my hopes, and Mr. Tietkens and I at once got three horses, and started off to reach the distant range, hoping now to find some water which would enable us to reach it.  For ten miles from the camp the shower had extended; but beyond that distance no signs of it were visible anywhere.  On the 4th we found a clay-pan, having a clay-hole at one end with some mud in it, and which the natives had but just left, but no water; then another, where, as thunderstorms were flying about in all directions, we dug out a clay tank.  While at work our clothes were damped with a sprinkling, but not enough rain fell to leave any on the ground.  It seemed evident I must pack out water from Fort Mueller, if ever I reached the new feature, as Nature evidently did not intend to assist, though it seemed monstrous to have to do so, while the sky was so densely overcast and black, and threatening thunderstorms coming up from all directions, and carrying away, right over our heads, thousands of cubic acres of water which must fall somewhere.  I determined to wait a few days and see the upshot of all these threatenings.  To the east it was undoubtedly raining, though to the west the sky was beautifully clear.  We returned to the native clay-pan, hoping rain might have fallen, but it was drier than when we left it.  The next morning the clear sky showed that all the rains had departed.  We deepened the native clay-hole, and then left for the depot, and found some water in a little hole about ten miles from it.  We rested the horses while we dug a tank, and drained all the water into it; not having a pickaxe, we could not get down deep enough.

From here I intended to pack some water out north.  While we were digging, another thunderstorm came up, sprinkling us with a few drops to show its contempt; it then split in halves, going respectively north and south, apparently each dropping rain on the country they passed over.

On reaching the camp, we were told that two nice showers had fallen, the stream now showing no signs of languishing all the day long.  With his usual intelligence, Jimmy Andrews had pulled a double-barrelled gun out from under a heap of packbags and other things by the barrel; of course, the hammer got caught and snapped down on the cartridge, firing the contents, but most fortunately missing his body by half an inch.  Had it been otherwise, we should have found him buried, and Gibson a lunatic and alone.  No natives had appeared while we were away; as I remembered what the old gentleman told me about keeping away, so I hoped he would do the same, on account of my parting remarks to him, which it seems he must have understood.

In the middle of the night my little dog Cocky rushed furiously out of the tent, and began to bark at, and chase some animal round the camp; he eventually drove it right into the tent.  In the obscured moonlight I supposed it was a native dog, but it was white, and looked exactly like a large fat lamb.  It was, at all events, an innocent lamb to come near us, for as it sauntered away, I sent a revolver bullet after it, and it departed at much greater speed, squealing and howling until out of earshot.