There is every reason why you should return to Adelaide: your health is seriously impaired,--you are in constant pain,--and your affairs are going to ruin; on all these considerations I would urge you to comply with my wishes." Mr.Browne admitted the truth of what I said, but felt certain that if he left, it would only be to hear of my having perished in that horrid desert,--that my life was too valuable to others to be so thrown away,--that he owed me too much to forsake me, and that he could not do that of which his conscience would ever after reproach him;--that his brother would attend to his interests, and that if it were otherwise, it would be no excuse for him to desert his friend,--that he would acquiesce in any other arrangement, but to leave me he could not.

"Well," I said, "I ask nothing unreasonable from you, nothing but what the sternness of duty calls for; and if you will not yield to friendly solicitations, I must order you home." "I cannot go," he replied; "I do not care for any pecuniary reward for my services, and will give it up: I want no pay, but desert you I will not." The reader will better imagine than I can describe, such a scene passing in the heart of a wilderness, and under such circumstances I may not state all that passed; suffice it to say, that we at length separated, with an assurance on Mr.Browne's part, that he would consider what I had proposed, and speak to me again in the morning.

The morning came, and after breakfast, he said he had endeavoured to force himself into a compliance with my wishes, but to no purpose;--that he could not leave me, and had made up his mind to take the consequences.

It was in vain that I remonstrated, and I therefore ceased to importune him on a point which, however much I might regret his decision, I could not but feel that he was influenced by the most disinterested anxiety for my safety.
But it became necessary to make some other arrangements; I had already been four days idle, and it was not my intention to let the week so pass over my head.

Mr.Browne was too ill to accompany me again into the field.