l I took the camels' nose-rope in my hand, and, pointing to my
knees, which were covered with yellow mud, simply said "water"; then,
when I led the camels to the place, down these poor fellows went on
their knees, in the mud and water, and drank, and drank, and I again
knelt down and drank, and drank. Oh, dear reader, if you have never
suffered thirst you can form no conception what agony it is. But talk
about drinking, I couldn't have believed that even thirsty camels
could have swallowed such enormous quantities of fluid.

It was delightful to watch the poor creatures visibly swelling before
our eyes. I am sure the big bull Mustara must have taken down fifty
gallons of water, for even after the first drink, when we took their
saddles off at the camp, they all three went back to the water and
kept drinking for nearly an hour.

We had made an average travelling of twenty-eight miles a day from
Wynbring, until this eighth day, when we came to the water in
twenty-four miles, thus making it 220 miles in all. I could not
sufficiently admire and praise the wonderful powers of these
extraordinary, and to me entirely new animals. During the time we had
been travelling the weather had been very hot and oppressive, the
thermometer usually rising to 104 degrees in the shade when we rested
for an hour in the middle of the day, but that was not the hottest
time, from 2.40 to 3 p.m. being the culminating period. The country we
had traversed was a most frightful desert, yet day after day our noble
camels kept moving slowly but surely on, with undiminished powers,
having carried water for their unfortunate companions the horses, and
seeing them drop one by one exhausted and dying of thirst; still they
marched contentedly on, carrying us by turns, and all the remaining
gear of the dead horses, and finally brought us to water at last. We
had yet over eighty miles to travel to reach the Finniss, and had we
not found water I am sure the three human beings of the party could
never have got there. The walking in turns over this dreadful region
made us suffer all the more, and it was dangerous at any time to allow
old Jimmy to put his baking lips to a water-bag, for he could have
drank a couple of gallons at any time with the greatest ease. For some
miles before we found the water the country had become of much better
quality, the sandhills being lower and well grassed, with clay flats
between. We also passed a number with pine-trees growin