there being only low bushes and scrubs on the sandhills, and casuarina
trees of beautiful outline and appearance in the hollows. When the
horses got clear of the stones they began to eat everything they could
snatch and bite at.

At fifteen miles from the gorge we encamped on a patch of dry grass.
The horses fed pretty well for a time, until the old mare began to
think it time to be off, and she soon would have led the others back
to the range. She dreaded this country, and knew well by experience
and instinct what agony was in store for her. Jimmy got them back and
short-hobbled them. There were plenty of ants here, but nothing to be
compared to the number in the gorge, and having to remove my blankets
only three or four times, I had a most delightful night's rest,
although, of course, I did not sleep. The horses were sulky and would
not eat; therefore they looked as hollow as drums, and totally unfit
to traverse the ground that was before them. However, this had to be
done, or at least attempted, and we got away early. We were in the
midst of the sandhills, and here they rose almost into mountains of
sand. It was most fatiguing to the horses, the thermometer 104 degrees
in the shade when we rested at twenty-two miles. Nor was this the
hottest time of the day. We had been plunging through the sand
mountains, and had not sighted the ridges, for thirty-seven miles,
till at length we found the nearest were pretty close to us. They
seemed very low, and quite unlikely to produce water. Reaching the
first, we ascended it, and I could see at a glance that any prospect
of finding water was utterly hopeless, as these low ridges, which ran
north and south, were merely a few oblique-lying layers of upheaved
granite, not much higher than the sandhills which surrounded them, and
there was no place where water could lodge even during rains. Not a
rise could be seen in any direction, except, of course, from where we