grass had prevented
them from recovering their condition, I hoped they were stronger and in
better spirits, and determined to make one more effort to get round the
head of the Bight;--if unsuccessful this time, I knew it would be final,
as I should no longer have the means of making any future trial, for I
fully made up my mind to take all our best and strongest animals, and
either succeed in the attempt or lose all.

On the 29th, I commenced making preparations, and on the following day
left the camp, the sheep, and four horses in charge of Mr. Scott and the
youngest of the native boys, whilst I proceeded myself, accompanied by
the overseer and eldest native boy on horseback, and a man driving a dray
with three horses, to cross once more through the scrub to the westward.
We took with us three bags of flour, a number of empty casks and kegs,
and two pack-saddles, besides spades and buckets, and such other minor
articles as were likely to be required. It was late in the day when we
arrived at the plains under the sand hills; and though we had brought our
six best and strongest horses, they were greatly fagged with their day's
work. We had still to take them some distance to the water, and back
again to the grass. At the water we found traces of a great many natives
who appeared to have left only in the morning, and who could not be very
far away; none were however seen.

December 31.--We remained in camp to rest the horses, and took the
opportunity of carrying up all the water we could, every time the animals
went backwards and forwards, to a large cask which had been fixed on the
dray. The taste of the water was much worse than when we had been here
before, being both salter and more bitter; this, probably, might arise
from the well having been dug too deep, or from the tide having been
higher than usual, though I did not notice that such had been the case.
In the afternoon we buried the three bags of flour we had brought headed
up in a cask.

January 1, 1841.--This morning I went down with the men to assist in
watering the horses, and upon returning to the camp, found my black boy
familiarly seated among a party of natives who had come up during our
absence. Two of them were natives I had seen to the north-west, and had
been among the party whose presence at the plains, on the 5th of
December, when I was surrounded by so many difficulties, had proved so
annoying to us at the time, and so fatal in its consequences t