hen the overseer
came up with them. I had nothing but a shell to dig with, and, as a very
large excavation was required to enable a bucket to be dipped, my
occupation was neither a light nor a short one. Having completed my work,
I killed a sheep, well knowing the party would be fatigued and hungry,
when they came up. About three they made their appearance, and thus, upon
the whole, we had very successfully got over this our first push, and
were soon very comfortably established at "Yeerkumban kauwe." The holes I
had dug enabled us easily and speedily to water the horses, and the sheep
I had killed afforded a refreshing meal to the overseer and boys, after
their harassing journey. In the afternoon the sand blew about in a most
annoying manner, covering us from head to foot, and filling everything we
put down, if but for an instant. This sand had been our constant torment
for many weeks past; condemned to live among the sand-hills for the sake
of procuring water, we were never free from irritation and inconvenience.
It floated on the surface of the water, penetrated into our clothes,
hair, eyes, and ears, our provisions were covered over with it, and our
blankets half buried when we lay down at nights,--it was a perpetual and
never-ceasing torment, and as if to increase our miseries we were again
afflicted with swarms of large horse-flies, which bit us dreadfully. On
the 4th, we remained in camp to rest the horses, and I walked round to
reconnoitre. Upon the beach I found the fragments of a wreck, consisting
of part of a mast, a tiller wheel, and some copper sheathings, the last
sad records of the fate of some unfortunate vessel on this wild and
breaker-beaten shore. There was nothing to indicate its size, or name, or
the period when the wreck occurred.

No recent traces of natives having been either at Yeerkumban kauwe, or
the more distant water, were visible anywhere, and I imagined they might
perhaps have made an excursion to the westward. A large flight of
red-winged cockatoos were seen today hovering around the sand-hills, and
appearing quite disconcerted at finding us in possession of the water; we
had not before seen them in the neighbourhood, and I can hardly
conjecture where they go to from this place, for generally they are birds
fond of water.

Knowing from the accounts of the natives that upon leaving Yeerkumban
kauwe, I should have a task before me of no ordinary difficulty to get
either the sheep or the ho