with their bundles.

SEARCH FOR WATER.

As they had not tasted water today I selected the best walkers, namely,
Corporals Auger and Coles, Hackney, Henry Woods, and Kaiber, and went off
to look for some to bring to the rest. We were now on a well-beaten
native path which traversed a fertile tract of country, and along this we
continued our route, walking as rapidly as we could, for night was coming
on apace. From this path we made frequent divergencies but found no
water; in one instance we met with a native well of great depth, where a
party of them had been drinking a few days before, but it was now quite
dry.

FIND IT AT WATER PEAK. WATER PEAK HILL.

We therefore continued our search, and just as it was growing dark had
made about seven miles of a circuitous course and found ourselves at the
foot of the high-peaked hill seen this morning, named by me Water Peak. I
still hurried along the native path, and was so wrapped up in the
thoughts of our present position that I passed, without seeing it, a
beautiful spring that rose to within a few inches of the surface. Near
this the natives had built a small hut, covered with boughs, concealed in
which they might kill the birds and animals which came to drink at this
lone water; the keen eye of Coles in a moment detected the little pool,
and our thirst was soon assuaged.

For a few minutes we lay on the bank of this clear spring, resting our
wearied limbs and admiring the scenery around us. There is a something in
the wild luxuriance of a totally new and uncultivated country which words
cannot convey to the inhabitant of an old and civilized land, the rich
and graceful forms of the trees, the massy moss-grown trunks which cumber
the soil, the tree half uptorn by some furious gale and still remaining
in the falling posture in which the winds have left it, the drooping
disorder of dead and dying branches, the mingling of rich grasses and
useless weeds, all declare that here man knows not the luxuries the soil
can yield him: it was over such a scene, rendered still more lovely by
the falling shadows of night, that our eyes now wandered.

BENIGHTED IN RETURNING TO THE PARTY.

I roused the men again and we commenced our return to the party, loaded
with a supply of water. It was now dark and we soon wandered from the
path. Kaiber took a star for his guide and led us straight across the
country; but our route lay through a warran ground, full of holes, and in
the darkness o