The day was cool; the southern
horizon, the only one we could see, was bounded entirely by red
sandhills and casuarina timber. The horses ate nothing all night, and
stood almost where they were hobbled.
In this region, and in the heat of summer, the moment horses, no
matter how fat and fresh they may be, are taken away from their
companions to face the fearful country that they know is before them,
they begin to fret and fall away visibly. They will scarcely eat, and
get all the weaker in consequence, and then they require twice as much
water as they otherwise would if their insides were partly filled with
grass. When I released our three from the hobbles this morning, they
immediately pretended to feed; but this old ruse has been experienced
before, and time was now up, to move on again. They were very thirsty,
and nearly emptied the rock basin, where we had a kind of bath before
starting. Along the foot-hills over which we were obliged to travel,
the country was much rougher than yesterday; so much so, that I kept
away as much as possible. At twenty miles we turned up a
creek-channel, which proved to be a dreadful gorge, being choked up
with huge boulders of red and white granite. Among these I found a
fine rock tarn; indeed, I might call it a marble bath, for the rock
was almost pure white, and perfectly bare all round.
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