The ants were so troublesome last night, I had to shift my bed several times.  Gibson was not at all affected by them, and slept well.  We were in our saddles immediately after daylight.  I was in hopes that a few miles might bring about a change of country, and so it did, but not an advantageous one to us.  At ten miles from camp the horizon became flatter, the sandhills fell off, and the undulations became covered with brown gravel, at first very fine.  At fifty-five miles it became coarser, and at sixty miles it was evident the country was becoming firmer, if not actually stony.  Here we turned the horses out, having come twenty miles.  I found one of our large waterbags leaked more than I expected, and our supply of water was diminishing with distance.  Here Gibson preferred to keep the big cob to ride, against my advice, instead of Badger, so, after giving Badger and Darkie a few pints of water each, Gibson drove them back on the tracks about a mile and let them go, to take their own time and find their own way back to the Circus.  They both looked terribly hollow and fatigued, and went away very slowly.  Sixty miles through such a country as this tells fearfully upon a horse.  The poor brutes were very unwilling to leave us, as they knew we had some water, and they also knew what a fearful region they had before them to reach the Circus again.

We gave the two remaining horses all the water contained in the two large water-bags, except a quart or two for ourselves.  This allowed them a pretty fair drink, though not a circumstance to what they would have swallowed.  They fed a little, while we remained here.  The day was warm enough.  The two five-gallon kegs with water we hung in the branches of a tree, with the packsaddles, empty water-bags, etc. of the other two horses.  Leaving the Kegs—­I always called this place by that name—­we travelled another twenty miles by night, the country being still covered with small stones and thickly clothed with the tall triodia.  There were thin patches of mulga and mallee scrub occasionally.  No view could be obtained to the west; all round us, north, south, east, and west, were alike, the undulations forming the horizons were not generally more than seven or eight miles distant from one another, and when we reached the rim or top of one, we obtained exactly the same view for the next seven or eight miles.  The country still retained all the appearance of fine, open, dry, grassy downs, and the triodia tops waving in the heated breeze had all the semblance of good grass.  The afternoon had been very oppressive, and the horses were greatly disinclined to exert themselves, though my mare went very well.  It was late by the time we encamped, and the horses were much in want of water, especially the big cob, who kept coming up to the camp all night, and tried to get at our water-bags, pannikins, etc.  The instinct of a horse when in the first stage of thirst in getting hold of any