Nothing Remained But The Bones And Skull Of
The Elephant, The Flesh And The Ivory Had Been Stolen.
The tracks
of a great number of men were left upon the ground, and the
aggageers were fortunate to return without an attack from
overwhelming numbers.
After hunting and exploring for some days in this neighbourhood,
I determined to follow the bed of the Royan to its junction with
the Settite. We started at daybreak, and after a long march along
the sandy bed, hemmed in by high banks, or by precipitous cliffs
of sandstone, we arrived at the junction; this was a curious and
frightful spot during the rainy season. The entire course of the
Royan was extremely rapid, but at this extremity it entered a
rocky pass between two hills, and leapt in a succession of grand
falls into a circular basin of about four hundred yards diameter.
This peculiar basin was surrounded by high cliffs, covered with
trees; to the left was an island formed by a rock about sixty
feet high; at the foot was a deep and narrow gorge through which
the Settite river made its exit from the circle. This large river
entered the basin through a rocky gap, at right angles with the
rush of water from the great falls of the Royan, and as both
streams issued from gorges which accelerated their velocity to
the highest degree, their junction formed a tremendous whirlpool:
thus, the basin which was now dry, with the exception of the
single contracted stream of the Settite, was in the rainy season
a most frightful scene of giddy waters. The sides of this basin
were, for about fifty feet from the bottom, sheeted with white
sand that had been left there by the centrifugal force of the
revolving waters; the funnel-shaped reservoir had its greatest
depth beneath the mass of rock that formed a barrier before the
mouth of the exit. From the appearance of the high-water mark
upon the rock, it was easy to ascertain the approximate depth
when the flood was at its maximum. We pitched our camp on the
slope above the basin, and for several days I explored the bed of
the river, which was exceedingly interesting at this dry season,
when all the secrets of its depths were exposed. In many places,
the rocks that choked its bed for a depth of thirty and forty
feet in the narrow passes, had been worked into caverns by the
constant attrition of the rolling pebbles. In one portion of the
river, the bottom was almost smooth, as though it had been paved
with flagstones; this was formed by a calcareous sediment from
the water, which had hardened into stone; in some places this
natural pavement had been broken up into large slabs by the force
of the current, where it had been undermined. This cement
appeared to be the same that had formed the banks of
conglomerate, which in some places walled in the river for a
depth of ten or fifteen feet, with a concrete of rounded pebbles
of all sizes from a nutmeg to a thirty-two pound shot.
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