Our next march was again only seven miles to a place called Muja, not that there was a village of any kind there, or indeed at eighteen out of twenty places we have stopped at. To suppose that the natives have a name for every field is absurd. Two speculations have been started as to how the quartermaster-general’s department always obtain a name for our camping-ground—the one is that they say something to a native, and the first word he utters they put down at once for the station; the other is that they draw a certain number of vowels and consonants from a bag, drop them on the ground, and see what word they form. It is certain that scarcely a name corresponds with those set down in maps, and instead of calling these flats and plains by any name the first native may tell them, it would be much more sensible, and would render it much more easy for an English reader to follow our course, if our quartermasters were to take some good map, and fix upon the name which most nearly corresponds with the position of our camps. The seven-miles road down to Muja was not difficult, but was one of the most dangerous we have passed over. The path for the whole distance wound along on the face of a deep ravine. It was often little more than a foot wide, and was formed sometimes upon rock, and sometimes on black earth, which had been dried hard by the wind and sun before we passed along it, but which if wet would have been perfectly impassable. Had a storm come on when we were upon it, we must have stopped to unload the animals. As it was, only one stumbled and went over the edge, and was of course killed. We have had a good many casualties lately among the animals. The Scinde Horse, too, have lost several horses, but this is hardly surprising from the way in which they ride them. A Scinde horseman, and I believe most of the native cavalry, have an idea that it shows good horsemanship to ride a horse up and down very steep places. It would be a great saving of horseflesh if an order were issued that all native cavalry should dismount and lead their horses up, if not down also, long or steep hills. Our camping-ground at Muja was flat and turfy, but it had the disadvantage of being a great height above water. Sir Robert Napier himself upon his arrival rode a couple of miles farther in search of some site more convenient for watering the animals, but he was unsuccessful in doing so. The camping-ground had also the disadvantage of a very great scarcity of wood.