Another Great Difficulty With Which We Had
To Contend Was The Absence Of Suitable Stone In
The Neighbourhood.
It was not that there was
none to be found, for the whole district abounds
in rock, but that it was so intensely hard as to
be almost impossible to work, and a bridge built
of it would have been very costly.
I spent many
a weary day trudging through the thorny
wilderness vainly searching for suitable material, and
was beginning to think that we should be forced
to use iron columns for the piers, when one day
I stumbled quite by accident on the very thing.
Brock and I were out "pot-hunting," and hearing
some guinea-fowl cackling among the bushes, I
made a circuit half round them so that Brock,
on getting in his shot, should drive them over in
my direction. I eventually got into position on
the edge of a deep ravine and knelt on one knee,
crouching down among the ferns. There I had
scarcely time to load when over flew a bird,
which I missed badly; and I did not have
another chance, for Brock had got to work, and
being a first-rate shot had quickly bagged a
brace. Meanwhile I felt the ground very hard
under my knee, and on examination found that
the bank of the ravine was formed of stone, which
extended for some distance, and which was
exactly the kind of material for which I had
long been fruitlessly searching.
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