I was doomed to suffer.

Frequently required at the camp, to give directions about, or to assist in the daily routine of duty, I did not like to absent myself long away at once; there were no objects of interest near me, within the limits of a day's excursion on foot, and the weak state of the horses, prevented me from making any examinations of the country at a greater distance on horseback; I felt like a prisoner condemned to drag out a dull and useless existence through a given number of days or weeks, and like him too, I sighed for freedom, and looked forward with impatience, to the time when I might again enter upon more active and congenial pursuits.

Fatigue, privation, disappointment, disasters, and all the various vicissitudes, incidental to a life of active exploration had occasionally, it is true, been the source of great anxiety or annoyance, but all were preferable to that oppressive feeling of listless apathy, of discontent and dissatisfaction, which resulted from the life I was now obliged to lead.
Christmas day came, and made a slight though temporary break in the daily monotony of our life.

The kindness of our friends had supplied us with many luxuries; and we were enabled even in the wilds, to participate in the fare of the season: whilst the season itself, and the circumstances under which it was ushered in to us, called forth feelings and associations connected with other scenes and with friends, who were far away; awakening, for a time at least, a train of happier thoughts and kindlier feelings than we had for a long time experienced.
On the 26th, I found that our horses and sheep were falling off so much in condition, from the scarcity of grass, and its dry and sapless quality, that it became absolutely necessary for us to remove elsewhere; I had already had all our surplus stores and baggage headed up in casks, or packed in cases, and carefully buried (previously covered over with a tarpaulin and with bushes to keep them from damp), near the sand-hills, and to-day I moved on the party for five miles to the well in the plains; the grass here was very abundant, but still dry, and without much nourishment; the water was plentiful, but brackish and awkward to get at, being through a hole in a solid sheet of limestone, similar to that behind Point Brown.

Upon cleaning it out and deepening it a little, it tasted even worse than before, but still we were thankful for it.
The geological character of the country was exactly similar to that we had been in so long, entirely of fossil formation, with a calcareous oolitic limestone forming the upper crusts, and though this was occasionally concealed by sand on the surface, we always were stopped by it in digging; it was seemingly a very recent deposit, full of marine shells, in every stage of petrifaction.