he walked away almost briskly, and we reached the
water-bag much earlier than I expected. Here we both had a good drink,
although he would have emptied the bag three times over if he could
have got it. The day had been hot.

When I left this singular watercourse, where plenty of water existed
in its upper portions, but was either too bitter or too salt for use,
I named it Elder's Creek. The other that joins it I called Hughes's
Creek, and the range in which they exist the Colonel's Range.

There was not much water left for the horse. He was standing close to
the bag for some hours before daylight. He drank it up and away we
went, having forty miles to go. I arrived very late. Everything was
well except the water supply, and that was gradually ceasing. In a
week there will be none. The day had been pleasant and cool.

Several more days were spent here, re-digging and enlarging the old
tank and trying to find a new. Gibson and I went to some hills to the
south, with a rampart-like face. The place swarmed with pigeons, but
we could find no water. We could hear the birds crooning and cooing in
all directions as we rode, "like the moan of doves in immemorial elms,
and the murmurings of innumerable bees." This rampart-like ridge was
festooned with cypress pines, and had there been water there, I should
have thought it a very pretty place. Every day was telling upon the
water at the camp. We had to return unsuccessful, having found none.
The horses were loose, and rambled about in several mobs and all
directions, and at night we could not get them all together. The water
was now so low that, growl as we may, go we must. It was five p.m. on
the 17th of November when we left. The nearest water now to us that I
knew of was at Fort Mueller, but I decided to return to it by a
different route from that we had arrived on, and as some hills lay
north-easterly, and some were pretty high, we went away in that
direction.

We travelled through the usual poor country, and crossed several dry
water-channels. In one I thought to get a drink for the horses. The
party having gone on, I overtook them and sent Gibson back with the
shovel. We brought the horses back to the place, but he gave a very
gloomy opinion of it. The supply was so poor that, after working and
watching the horses all night, they could only get a bucketful each by
morning, and I was much vexed at having wasted time and energy in such
a wretched spot, which we left in hu