The water still holds
out. The camp is in a confined gully, and warm, though it is
comparatively a cool day. The grass here is very poor, and the horses
wander a great deal to look for feed. Four of them could not be found
in the morning. A slight thunderstorm passed over in the night, with a
sprinkling of rain for nearly an hour, but not sufficient fell to damp
a pocket-handkerchief. It was, however, quite sufficient to damp my
hopes of a good fall. The flies are very numerous here and
troublesome. After watering my two horses I started away by myself for
the ranges out west. I went on our old tracks as far as they went,
then I visited some other hills on my line of march. As usual, the
country alternated between open stones at the foot of the hills and
dense scrubs beyond. I thought one of the beds of scrubs I got into
the densest I had ever seen, it was actually impenetrable without
cutting one's way, and I had to turn around and about in all
directions. I had the greatest difficulty to get the horse I was
leading to come on at all; I had no power over him whatever. I could
not use either a whip or a stick, and he dragged so much that he
nearly pulled me out of my saddle, so that I could hardly tell which
way I was going, and it was extremely difficult to keep anything like
a straight course.
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