k, hoping to find some food, or proper bushes for the camels; but,
failing in this, had to turn them out at last to find what sustenance
they could for themselves. On the following morning, when they were
brought up to the camp--at least when some of them were--I was
informed that several had got poisoned in the night, and were quite
unable to move, while one or two of them were supposed to be dying.
This, upon the outskirt of the desert, was terrible news to hear, and
the question of what's to be done immediately arose; but it was
answered almost as soon, by the evident fact that nothing could be
done, because half the camels could not move, and it would be worse
than useless to pack up the other half and leave them. So we quietly
remained and tended our sick and dying ones so well, that by night one
of the worst was got on his legs again. We made them sick with hot
water, butter, and mustard, and gave them injections with the clyster
pipe as well; the only substance we could get out of them was the
chewed-up Gyrostemon ramulosus, which, it being nearly dark, we had
not observed when we camped. We drove the mob some distance to another
sandhill, where there was very little of this terrible scourge, and
the next morning I was delighted to find that the worst ones and the
others were evidently better, although they were afflicted with
staggers and tremblings of the hind limbs. I was rather undecided what
to do, whether to push farther at once into the desert or retreat to
the last rocky cleft water, now over five-and-twenty miles behind us.
But, as Othello says, once to be in doubt is once to be resolved, and
I decided that, as long as they could stagger, the camels should
stagger on. In about twelve miles Alec Ross and Tommy found a place
where the natives had formerly obtained water by digging. Here we set
to work and dug a well, but only got it down twelve feet by night, no
water making its appearance. The next morning we were at it again, and
at fifteen feet we saw the fluid we were delving for. The water was
yellowish, but pure, and there was apparently a good supply. We had,
unfortunately, hit on the top of a rock that covered nearly the whole
bottom, and what water we got came in only at one corner. Two other
camels were poisoned in the night, but those that were first attacked
were a trifle better.

On the 8th of June more camels were attacked, and it was impossible to
get out of this horrible and poisonous regio