urnish
excellent fodder plants for all herbivorous animals. Although the soil
was not very good, being sand mixed with clay, it was a very hard and
good travelling country; the camels' feet left scarcely any impression
on it, and only by the flattened grass and crushed plants trodden to
earth by our heavy-weighing ships, could our trail now be followed.
The plain appeared to extend a great distance all around us. A solemn
stillness pervaded the atmosphere; nobody spoke much above a whisper.
Once we saw some wild turkey bustards, and Mr. Young managed to wing
one of them on the seventh day from the dam. On the seventh night the
cow, for which we had delayed there, calved, but her bull-calf had to
be destroyed, as we could not delay for it on the march. The old cow
was in very good condition, went off her milk in a day or two, and
continued on the journey as though nothing had occurred. On the eighth
we had cold fowl for breakfast, with a modicum of water. On the ninth
and tenth days of our march the plains continued, and I began to think
we were more liable to die for want of water on them than in the dense
and hideous scrubs we had been so anxious to leave behind. Although
the region now was all a plain, no views of any extent could be
obtained, as the country still rolled on in endless undulations at
various distances apart, just as in the scrubs. It was evident that
the regions we were traversing were utterly waterless, and in all the
distance we had come in ten days, no spot had been found where water
could lodge. It was totally uninhabited by either man or animal, not a
track of a single marsupial, emu, or wild dog was to be seen, and we
seemed to have penetrated into a region utterly unknown to man, and as
utterly forsaken by God. We had now come 190 miles from water, and our
prospects of obtaining any appeared more and more hopeless. Vainly
indeed it seemed that I might say--with the mariner on the
ocean--"Full many a green spot needs must be in this wide waste of
misery, Or the traveller worn and wan never thus could voyage on." But
where was the oasis for us? Where the bright region of rest? And now,
when days had many of them passed away, and no places had been met
where water was, the party presented a sad and solemn procession, as
though each and all of us was stalking slowly onward to his tomb. Some
murmurs of regret reached my ears; but I was prepared for more than
that. Whenever we camped, Saleh would stand