their enfeebled condition. We had now reached the
very spot from which, seven years before, Captain
Deasy had sent forward two natives to find out the
nature of the country to the east; they had returned
with the report that it was barren and without water.
We felt confident, however, that such was not the case,
since, as far as the eye could reach, the landscape presented
features exactly similar to that in which we
were encamped, and the continuous stream of antelope
appearing from the east almost certainly indicated
that grass flourished in that direction during the
greater part of the year.
For the first night, at any rate, our expectations
were justified; we came upon a small nullah rich
in grass and boortsa, and obtained a sufficient supply of
water for ourselves and the ponies by digging six feet
below the surface.
Before the tents had been got ready that evening,
Ram Singh rejoined us, with all the members of his party
well and the ponies quite f i t; as he had had the six best
animals, it was a relief to find them all alive and in
such excellent condition. He had managed to get
through some good work on his journey, having covered
a large tract of country along the foot of the Kuan Luans,
and having incidentally discovered a fresh-water lake,
where large numbers of wildfowl, geese, ducks and
cranes were breeding. He would have accomplished
even more than this, had the country been more
fertile, but very little grass was to be found, and, as
one of the ponies would not touch the Indian corn,
he had been compelled to rejoin us in order to save it
from starvation.
During the next afternoon a gale sprang up from the
east and nearly carried the camp bodily away; for we
had pitched the tents in anticipation of'a westerly wind.
A C o u n t r y G e n t l em a n s a l u t in g w i t h h i s T o n g u e .