Dense bunch of
scrub not twenty yards from the spot where he had tied his horses up.
While I was away he had gone on top of the little stony eminence close
by, and from its summit had obtained a bird's-eye view of the ground
below, and thus perceived the two animals, which had never been absent
at all. It seemed strange to me that I could not find their tracks,
but the reason was there were no tracks to find. I took it for granted
when Carmichael told me of their absence that they were absent, but he
and Robinson were both mistaken.
It was now nearly evening, and I had been riding my horse at a fast
pace the whole day; I was afraid we could not reach the reserve water
by night. But we pushed on, Mr. Carmichael joining us, not having
found any water. At dusk we reached the small creek or gully, up in
whose rocks I had found the water on Sunday. At a certain point the
creek split in two, or rather two channels joined, and formed one, and
I suppose the same ill fate that had pursued me all day made me
mistake the proper channel, and we drove the unfortunate and limping
horses up a wretched, rocky, vile, scrubby, almost impenetrable gully,
where there was not a sup of water.
On discovering my error, we had to turn them back over the same
horrible places, all rocks, dense scrubs, and triodia, until we got
them into the proper channel. When near the first little hole I had
formerly seen, I dismounted, and walked up to see how it had stood
during my absence, and was grieved to discover that the lowest and
largest hole was nearly dry. I bounded up the rocks to the next, and
there, by the blessing of Providence, was still a sufficient quantity,
as the slow trickling of the water from basin to basin had not yet
entirely ceased, though its current had sadly diminished since my last
visit only some seventy hours since.
By this time it was dark, and totally impossible to get the horses up
the gully. We had to get them over a horrible ridge of broken and
jumbled rocks, having to get levers and roll away huge boulders, to
make something like a track to enable the animals to reach the water.
Time (and labour) accomplishes all things, and in time the last
animal's thirst was quenched, and the last drop of water sucked up
from every basin. I was afraid it would not be replenished by morning.
We had to encamp in the midst of a thicket of a kind of willow acacia
with pink bark all in little curls, with a small and pretty
mimosa-like leaf.
