Nearer to the sand-hills we obtained excellent water by digging, at a depth of five feet, and only half a mile away from the grass.

This place was too favourable not to be made the most of, and I determined to halt for a day or two to give our horses the benefit of it, and to enable us to diminish the weight of meat they had to carry.

Whilst here I gave Wylie free permission to eat as much as he could,--a privilege which he was not long in turning to account.

Between last night's supper and this morning's breakfast he had got through six-and-a-half pounds of solid cooked flesh, weighed out and free from bone, and he then complained, that as he had so little water (the well had fallen in and he did not like the trouble of cleaning it out again), he could hardly eat at all.

On an average he would consume nine pounds of meat per day.