t, whilst the natives enjoyed their undisturbed repose. Two of the
boys were young, and none of the three had their frame and muscles
sufficiently developed to enable them to undergo the fatigue of walking
during the day if deprived of their rest at night; still the duty became
very hard upon two persons, where it was of constant occurrence, and
superadded to the ordinary day's labour.

March 29.--After calling up the party, I ascended the highest sand-hill
near me, from which the prospect was cheerless and gloomy, and the point
and sandy cones we imagined we had seen last night had vanished. Indeed,
upon examining the chart, and considering that as yet we had advanced
only one hundred and twenty-six miles from the last water, I felt
convinced that we had still very far to go before we could expect to
reach the sand-drifts. The supply of water we had brought for ourselves
was nearly exhausted, and we could afford none for breakfast to-day; the
night, however, had been cool, and we did not feel the want of it so
much. Upon moving, I sent one of the natives back to the horse I had tied
up, about four miles from our camp to try to bring him on to where we
should halt in the middle of the day.

For ten miles we continued along the beach until we came to a bluff rocky
ridge, running close into the sea; here we rested until the tide fell,
and to give the native boy an opportunity of rejoining us, which he did
soon after, but without the horse; the poor animal had travelled about
eight miles with him from the place where we had left him, but had then
been unable to come any further, and he abandoned him.

Whilst the party were in camp, I sent the overseer to a distant point of
land to try and get a view of the coast beyond; but upon his return,
after a long walk, he told me his view to the west was obstructed by a
point similar to the one I had sent him to. During the day, we had passed
a rather recent native encampment, where were left some vessels of bark
for holding water, or for collecting it from the roots of trees, or the
grass. Near where we halted in the middle of the day, the foot-prints of
the natives were quite fresh, and shewed that they were travelling the
same way as ourselves.

For the last two or three days, we had passed many pieces of wreck upon
the beach, oars, thwarts of boats, fragments of masts, spars, etc. strewed
about in every direction; none of them, however, appeared to have been
recently deposite