pieces also. Starting at earliest dawn, and traversing
formidably steep and rolling waves of sand, we at length reached the
foot of the mountain we had been striving for, in twenty-three miles,
forty-five from Wynbring. I could not help thinking it was the most
desolate heap on the face of the earth, having no water or places that
could hold it. The elevation of this eminence was over 1000 feet above
the surrounding country, and over 2000 feet above the sea. The country
visible from its summit was still enveloped in dense scrubs in every
direction, except on a bearing a few degrees north of east, where some
low ridges appeared. I rode my horse Chester many miles over the
wretched stony slopes at the foot of this mountain, and tied him up to
trees while I walked to its summit, and into gullies and crevices
innumerable, but no water rewarded my efforts, and it was very evident
that what the old black fellow Wynbring Tommy, had said, about its
being waterless was only too true. After wasting several hours in a
fruitless search for water, we left the wretched mount, and steered
away for the ridges I had seen from its summit. They appeared to be
about forty-five miles away. As it was so late in the day when we left
the mountain, we got only seven miles from it when darkness again
overtook us, and we had to encamp.

On the following day, the old horse Jimmy was riding completely gave
in from the heat and thirst and fearful nature of the country we were
traversing, having come only sixty-five miles from Wynbring. We could
neither lead, ride, nor drive him any farther. We had given each horse
some water from the supply the camels carried, when we reached the
mountain, and likewise some on the previous night, as the heavy
sandhills had so exhausted them, this horse having received more than
the others. Now he lay down and stretched out his limbs in the agony
of thirst and exhaustion. I was loth to shoot the poor old creature,
and I also did not like the idea of leaving him to die slowly of
thirst; but I thought perhaps if I left him, he might recover
sufficiently to travel at night at his own pace, and thus return to
Wynbring, although I also knew from former sad experience in Gibson's
Desert, that, like Badger and Darkie, it was more than probable he
could never escape. His saddle was hung in the fork of a
sandal-wood-tree, not the sandal-wood of commerce, and leaving him
stretched upon the burning sand, we moved away. Of cour