Relieved from the pressure of immediate toil, and from the anxiety and suspense I had been in on the subject of water, my mind wandered to the gap created in my little party since we had last been at water; more than ever, almost, did I feel the loss of my overseer, now that the last and most difficult of our forced marches had been successfully accomplished, and that there was every hope of our progress for the future, being both less difficult and more expeditious.  How delighted he would have been had he been with us to participate in the successful termination of a stage, which he had ever dreaded more than any other during the whole of our journey, and with what confidence and cheerfulness he would have gone on for the future.  Out of five two only were now present; our little band had been severed never to be reunited; and I could not but blame myself for yielding to the overseer’s solicitation to halt on the evening of the 29th April, instead of travelling on all night as I had originally intended:  had I adhered to my own judgment all might yet have been well.  Vain and bootless, however, now were all regrets for the irrecoverable past; but the present was so fraught with circumstances calculated to recal and to make me feel more bitterly the loss I had sustained, that painful as the subject was, the mind could not help reverting to and dwelling upon it.

Having given each of the horses a bucket of water, Wylie watched them whilst I cooked our dinner and made some tea, after getting which we again gave the horses another bucket of water a-piece, hobbled them out for the night, and then lay down ourselves, feeling perfectly secure from being overtaken by the native boys.  We were obliged to place ourselves close to the hole of water to keep the horses from getting into it, as they were thirsty and restless, and kept walking round the well nearly the whole night, and feeding very little.  We ourselves, too, although dreadfully tired and weak, were so cold and restless, that we slept but little.  I had also a large swelling on two of the joints of the second finger of the right hand, which gave me very great pain.

May 4.—­After an early breakfast we gave the horses as much water as they chose to drink, and removing their hobbles gave them full liberty to range where they liked.  I then left Wylie to continue his slumbers, and taking my rifle, walked about three miles among the sand-drifts to search for grass, but could find none, except the coarse vegetation that grew amongst the sand-drifts.  I found two other places where the natives got water by digging, and have no doubt that it may be procured almost anywhere in these drifts, which extend for some miles, along the coast.  Some black cockatoos made their appearance near the sand-hills, indicating, in connection with the change I had noticed in the vegetation, that we were now about entering a different and less difficult country than any we had yet traversed.  These birds I knew never inhabited that description of country we had been so long travelling through.  We had not seen one before, during our whole journey, and poor Wylie was quite delighted at the idea of our vicinity to a better region.