So I told Nicholls to unpack the camels while I
unsaddled the horses. All the animals seemed over-powered with
lassitude and exhaustion; the camels immediately lay down, and the
horses stood disconsolately close to them, now no longer terrified at
their proximity.
Nicholls and I extended our rugs upon the ground and lay down, and
then we discovered that old Jimmy had left the camp, and thought he
had given us the slip in the dark. We had been lying down some time
when the old fellow returned, and in the most voluble and excited
language told us he had found the water; it was, he said, "big one,
watta, mucka, pickaninny;" and in his delight at his success he began
to describe it, or try to do so, in the firelight, on the ground; he
kept saying, "big one, watta--big one, watta--watta go that way, watta
go this way, and watta go that way, and watta go this way," turning
himself round and round, so that I thought it must be a lake or swamp
he was trying to describe. However, we got the camels and horses
resaddled and packed, and took them where old Jimmy led us. The moon
had now risen above the high sandhills that surrounded us, and we soon
emerged upon a piece of open ground where there was a large white
clay-pan, or bare patch of white clay soil, glistening in the moon's
rays, and upon this there appeared an astonishing object--something
like the wall of an old house or a ruined chimney.
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