But at the Springs
there was no necessity to think of anything but running water; and after
a happy day, Bertie's Nellie, Rosy, and Biddy returned to the
homestead - the goats had to be seen to, Nellie said, thinking nothing of
a twenty-seven-mile walk in a day, with a few hours' washing for
recreation in between whiles.
Part of the staff, a shadow or two, and the puppy dogs, filled in all
time until the yard was pronounced finished then a mob of cattle was
brought in and put through to test its strength; and just as we were
preparing to return to the homestead the Dandy's waggon lumbered into
camp with its loading of stores.
A box of new books kept us busy all afternoon, and then, before sundown,
the Maluka suggested a farewell stroll among the pools.
The Bitter Springs - a chain of clear, crystal pools, a long winding
chain, doubling back on itself in loops and curves - form the source of
the permanent flow of the Roper; pools only a few feet deep, irregular
and wide-spreading, with mossy-green, deeply undermined, overhanging
banks, and lime-stone bottoms washed into terraces that gleam azure-blue
through the transparent water.
There is little rank grass along their borders, no sign of water-lilies,
and few weeds within them; clumps of palms dotted here and there among
the light timber, and everywhere sunflecked, warm, dry shade. Nowhere is
there a hint of that sinister suggestion of the Reach. Clear, beautiful,
limpid, wide-spreading, irregular pools, set in an undulating field of
emerald-green mossy surf, shaded with graceful foliage and gleaming in
the sunlight with exquisite opal tints - a giant necklace of opals, set in
links of emerald green, and thrown down at hazard to fall in loops and
curves within a forest grove.
It is in appearance only the pools are isolated; for although many feet
apart in some instances, they are linked together throughout by a shallow
underground river, that runs over a rocky bed; while the turf, that looks
so solid in many places, is barely a two-foot crust arched over five or
six feet of space and water - a deathtrap for heavy cattle; but a place of
interest to white folk.
The Maluka and I wandered aimlessly in and out among the pools for a
while, and, then coming out unexpectedly from a piece of bush, found
ourselves face to face with a sight that froze all movement out of us for
a moment - the living, moving head of a horse, standing upright from the
turf on a few inches of neck: a grey, uncanny, bodyless head, nickering
piteously at us as it stood on the turf at our feet.
