n where we were.
After their departure, I attended to the horses, and then amused myself
preparing some fishing lines to set off the shore, with a large stone as
an anchor, and a small keg for a buoy. The day was, however, wild and
boisterous; and in my attempts to get through the surf, to set the lines,
I was thrown down, together with the large stone I was carrying, and my
leg severely cut and bruised. The weather was extremely cold, too, and
being without coat or jacket of any kind, I suffered severely from it.

The 15th was another cold day, with the wind at south-west, and we could
neither set the lines, nor spear sting-ray, whilst the supply we had
before obtained was now nearly exhausted. One of the horses was taken
ill, and unable to rise, from the effects of the cold; his limbs were
cramped and stiff, and apparently unable to sustain the weight of his
body. After plucking dry grass, and making a bed for him, placing a
breakwind of boughs round, and making a fire near him, we left him for
the night.

Late in the evening, the overseer and boy returned from the westward, and
reported, that the cliffs were sixteen miles away; that they had dug for
water, but that none could be found, and that there was hardly a blade of
grass any where, whilst the whole region around was becoming densely
scrubby; through much of which we should have to pass before we reached
the cliffs. Altogether, the overseer seemed quite discouraged by the
appearance of the country, and to dread the idea of moving on in that
direction, often saying, that he wished he was back, and that he thought
he could retrace his steps to Fowler's Bay, where a supply of provisions
had been buried. I was vexed at these remarks, because I felt that I
could not coincide in them, and because I knew that when the moment for
decision came, my past experience, and the strong reasons which had
produced in my own mind quite a different conviction, would compel me to
act in opposition to the wishes of the only European with me, and he a
person, too, whom I sincerely respected for the fidelity and devotion
with which he had followed me through all my wanderings. I was afraid,
too, that the native boys, hearing his remarks, and perceiving that he
had no confidence in our future movements, would catch up the same idea,
and that, in addition to the other difficulties and anxieties I had to
cope with, would be the still more frightful one of disaffection and
discontent. A