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I intended to have made a long stage, as I no longer had any fears about not finding water; but at nine miles one of the horses knocked up, and could proceed no farther, I was compelled, therefore, to turn in among the sand-drifts, and halt at five in the morning of the 7th.
Wylie and I moved on in the evening, with the horses for two miles, and again pitched our camp among the sand-drifts, at a place where the natives were in the habit of digging wells for water, and where we procured it at a very moderate depth below the surface.
I was anxious to have made a long stage, and if possible, to have reached Thistle Cove by night; but the country we had to pass over was heavy and sandy, and after travelling fifteen miles, the horses became so jaded, that I was obliged to turn in among some sand-drifts near the coast, and halt for the night.
Sending back one of the men to the depot, I left the native boy to guide the dray, whilst I diverged towards the coast to look for water among the sand-drifts, that were seen occasionally in that direction; in none of them, however, could I obtain a drop.
She was alone, and, being alone, she was helpless; she was no better than a child, without kindred to look to her and without power to look to herself, with food and drink beside her, but no skill to make and take them. Thus her awakening sense was like that of a lamb whose mother has been swallowed up in the night by the sand-drifts of the simoom. It was not so much love as loss.
Nearer to the coast, and on either side of Cape Pasley were sand-drifts, in which I have no doubt that water might have been procured. We found none where we were encamped, but had sufficient in the kegs for our own use, and the horses were not thirsty; many and recent tracks of natives were observed, but the people themselves were not seen.
Where are you going? asked Olenin, with difficulty attracting the Cossacks' attention. 'We are off to catch abreks. They're hiding among the sand-drifts. We are just off, but there are not enough of us yet. And the Cossacks continued to shout, more and more of them joining as they rode down the street.
It was now a difficult matter to decide what to do: our horses were greatly jaded, owing to the hilly and sandy character of the country; our water was reduced to a low ebb in the casks, for relying upon the natives guiding us to more, we had used it improvidently; whilst the very least distance we could be away from the water, at the sand-drifts, was twenty-five miles; if we went back we lost all our previous labour, and could not do so without leaving the dray behind, and if we went forward, it was very problematical whether water could be procured within any distance attainable by our tired horses.
Lamely she moved ahead, sagging to starboard, badly scarred, ill-trimmed and awry, but still alive. Her great black shadow, trailing behind her in the water, passed on to the beach, wrinkled itself up over the dunes and slid across the sand-drifts where little flutters of cloth, uncovered by the ghoulish jackals, showed from the burning stretch of tawny desert.
This was the first grass we had met with since we descended the cliffs on the 3rd instant. The horses having entirely subsisted since then on the wiry vegetation which binds the sand-drifts together.
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