Upon Rejoining My Companions, As We Now Seldom Spoke To One Another, I Merely Told Them I Had Seen Water And Natives, But That It Was Hardly Worth While To Go Back To The Place, But That They Could Go If They Liked.

Robinson asked me why I had ridden my horse West Australian - shortened to W.A., but usually called Guts, from his persistent attention to his "inwards" - so hard when there seemed no likelihood's of our getting any water for the night?

I said, "Ride him back and see." I called this place Escape Glen. In two or three miles after I overtook them, the Petermann became exhausted on the plains. We pushed on nearly east, as now we must strike the Finke in forty-five to fifty miles; but we had to camp that night without water. The lame horses went better the farther they were driven. I hoped to travel the lameness out of them, as instances of that kind have occurred with me more than once. We were away from our dry camp early, and had scarcely proceeded two miles when we struck the bank of a broad sandy-bedded creek, which was almost as broad as the Finke itself: just where we struck it was on top of a red bank twenty or thirty feet high. The horses naturally looking down into the bed below, one steady old file of a horse, that carried my boxes with the instruments, papers, quicksilver, etc., went too close, the bank crumbled under him, and down he fell, raising a cloud of red dust.

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