Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/269

 it should be so no one can tell, as we all eat from the same meat, and live precisely alike.

As I before mentioned that I thought the rations would soon be reduced it has come to pass, and next week they will be reduced to 5 lb. of flour a week, and I dare say very soon to 4 lb. It is better than having none. There are rations waiting for us at Finnis' Springs, to south-west, about 300 miles from our present position. Water is getting scarce below. I hope we shall not be locked up for the want of it. However, McKinlay Lake will be a good stand by, as I don't think that can ever go dry, on account of its depth, though it might go bad like the others, and we should be in a fix with bad water and reduced rations.

McKinlay says: "I wish it would rain, that I could start through the desert out of this, and get on to the waters north and west of this, and be doing something, as this sort of life is worse than hard work on the constitution." There is one thing, this detention here has enabled us to have the backs of the working animals attended to better than we otherwise could have done, and they are on splendid feed; but the flies and the excessive heat of the sun are two things against them, on account of the sores and wounds some of them have, and they will not readily heal. Several of the horses have been bled, but from the heat and