horses could go no further; I was obliged, therefore, to come to a halt, and decide what was best to be done.  There appeared to be a disastrous fatality attending all our movements in this wretched region, which was quite inexplicable.  Every time that we had attempted to force a passage through it, we had been baffled and driven back.  Twice I had been obliged to abandon our horses before; and on the last of these occasions had incurred a loss of the three best of them; now, after giving them a long period of rest, and respite from labour, and after taking every precaution which prudence or experience could suggest, I had the mortification of finding that we were in the same predicament we had been in before, and with as little prospect of accomplishing our object.  Having but little time for deliberation, I at once ordered the overseer and man to take the horses back to the water, and give them two days rest there, and then to rejoin us again on the third, whilst I and the native boy would remain with the dray, until their return.  The natives also remained with us for the first night; but finding we still continued in camp, they left on the following morning, which I was sorry for, as I hoped one would have been induced to go with us to the Great Bight.

On the fifth of January, the overseer and man returned with the horses; but so little had they benefited by their two days rest, that upon being yoked up, and put to the dray, they would not move it.  We were obliged, therefore, to unload once more, and lighten the load by burying a cask of water, and giving another to the horses.  After this, we succeeded in getting them along, with the remainder, to the undulating plains; and here we halted for the night, after a stage of only seven miles, but one, which, short as it was, had nearly worn out the draught horses.  Here we dug a large hole, and buried twenty-two gallons of water, for my own horse, and that of the black boy, on our return; and as I determined to take a man with me, with a pack-horse, nine gallons more were buried apart from the other, for them, so that when the man got his cask of water, he might not disturb ours, or leave traces by which the natives could discover it.

January 6.—­Sending back the dray with the overseer, at the first dawn of day, I and the native boy proceeded to the north-west, accompanied by the man leading a pack-horse with twelve gallons of water.  The day turned out hot, and the road was over a very heavy sandy country; but by eleven o’clock we had accomplished a distance of seventeen miles, and had reached the furthest point from which I turned back on the 1st December.  I walked alternately with the boy, so as not to oppress the riding horses, but the man walked all the way.