Nay, so easy is it to fight battles in one's back parlour, and to endure hardships with one's feet on the fender, that this same imaginary and hastily-judging reader, whose flippant conclusions we now quote, may think lightly of the necessity in which our travellers found themselves of eating a horse, as recorded in the Leichhardtian journal, p. 247. A horse broke its thigh, and it was resolved to make the best of the meat. It proved tolerably palatable, especially the liver and kidneys, pronounced equal to those of a bullock. When the flour was gone, the only relief from the monotony of a carnivorous diet was obtained by experimentalising on seeds, fruits, and roots, of which many unknown species were met with. How the party escaped death by poison is a wonder, for they were very venturesome in their essays, and not unfrequently were punished for their boldness by severe vomitings and other unpleasant symptoms. The jerked meat they carried with them often became musty and tainted, having been imperfectly dried, or from the effects of rain. But their greatest difficulty was the frequent scarcity of water, which sadly afflicted their horses, and prolonged their route, compelling them to deviate from the direct course to encamp near pools or lagoons. These were not always to be found; and they often remained for very many hours, even for days, without other water than they could carry in their scanty kettles. Then the bullocks were allowed to stray in search of drink, and it was sometimes necessary, in order to save the horses' lives, to take them back to the previous night's camping place. The fatigues thus encountered might well have exhausted the endurance and physical energies of the strongest man. "I had been in a state of the most anxious suspense," says Dr Leichhardt on one of these occasions, "about the fate of our bullocks, and was deeply thankful to the Almighty when I heard they were all safe. I had suffered much from thirst, having been forty-eight hours without water, and which had been increased by a run of two miles after my horse, which attempted to follow the others; and also from a severe pain in the head, produced by the impatient brute's _jumping with its hobbled fore-feet on my forehead_, as I lay asleep with the bridle in my hand; but after drinking three quarts of cold tea, which John had brought with him, I soon recovered, and assisted to load our horses with the remainder of our luggage, when we returned to join our companions. The weather was very hot during the day, but a cool breeze moved over the plains, and the night, as usual, was very cold." It needed men of iron frame to endure, without serious and frequent indisposition, such terrible privations and sudden contrasts of temperature. Nevertheless, none of the party seem to have suffered from illness produced by other causes than irregular and hazardous diet, except in the case of the Doctor, who once or twice had a touch of lumbago.