The weather had been (with the exception of one or two hot days) unusually cold and favourable for the time of year.  Our horses had enjoyed a long rest, and though the dry state of the grass had prevented them from recovering their condition, I hoped they were stronger and in better spirits, and determined to make one more effort to get round the head of the Bight;—­if unsuccessful this time, I knew it would be final, as I should no longer have the means of making any future trial, for I fully made up my mind to take all our best and strongest animals, and either succeed in the attempt or lose all.

On the 29th, I commenced making preparations, and on the following day left the camp, the sheep, and four horses in charge of Mr. Scott and the youngest of the native boys, whilst I proceeded myself, accompanied by the overseer and eldest native boy on horseback, and a man driving a dray with three horses, to cross once more through the scrub to the westward.  We took with us three bags of flour, a number of empty casks and kegs, and two pack-saddles, besides spades and buckets, and such other minor articles as were likely to be required.  It was late in the day when we arrived at the plains under the sand hills; and though we had brought our six best and strongest horses, they were greatly fagged with their day’s work.  We had still to take them some distance to the water, and back again to the grass.  At the water we found traces of a great many natives who appeared to have left only in the morning, and who could not be very far away; none were however seen.

December 31.—­We remained in camp to rest the horses, and took the opportunity of carrying up all the water we could, every time the animals went backwards and forwards, to a large cask which had been fixed on the dray.  The taste of the water was much worse than when we had been here before, being both salter and more bitter; this, probably, might arise from the well having been dug too deep, or from the tide having been higher than usual, though I did not notice that such had been the case.  In the afternoon we buried the three bags of flour we had brought headed up in a cask.

January 1, 1841.—­This morning I went down with the men to assist in watering the horses, and upon returning to the camp, found my black boy familiarly seated among a party of natives who had come up during our absence.  Two of them were natives I had seen to the north-west, and had been among the party whose presence at the plains, on the 5th of December, when I was surrounded by so many difficulties, had proved so annoying to us at the time, and so fatal in its consequences to our horses.  They recognised me at once, and apparently described to the other natives, the circumstances under which they had met me, lamenting most pathetically the death of the horses; the dead bodies of which they had probably seen in their route to the water.  Upon examining their weapons they shewed us several that were headed with flint, telling