Just as I got clear of the bank of the
creek, I heard a faint squeak, and looking about I saw, and
immediately caught, a small dying wallaby, whose marsupial mother had
evidently thrown it from her pouch. It only weighed about two ounces,
and was scarcely furnished yet with fur. The instant I saw it, like an
eagle I pounced upon it and ate it, living, raw, dying--fur, skin,
bones, skull, and all. The delicious taste of that creature I shall
never forget. I only wished I had its mother and father to serve in
the same way. I had become so weak that by late at night, I had only
accomplished eleven miles, and I lay down about five miles from the
Gorge of Tarns, again choking for water. While lying down here, I
thought I heard the sound of the foot-falls of a galloping horse going
campwards, and vague ideas of Gibson on the Fair Maid--or she without
him--entered my head. I stood up, and listened, but the sound had died
away upon the midnight air. On the 1st of May, as I afterwards found,
at one o'clock in the morning, I was walking again, and reached the
Gorge of Tarns long before daylight, and could again indulge in as
much water as I desired; but it was exhaustion I suffered from, and I
could hardly move.
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