- We Returned To The Creek In Which We Had Encamped On The 16th,
And Pitched Our Tents A Little Lower Down, Where Some Rich Feed Promised
Our Cattle A Good Treat.
Immediately after luncheon, I started again with
Charley down the creek, myself on horseback, but my companion on foot.
It
soon became very rocky, with gullies joining it from both sides; but,
after two miles, it opened again into fine well-grassed lightly timbered
flats, and terminated in a precipice, as the others had done. A great
number of tributary creeks joined it in its course, but all formed
gullies and precipices. Many of these gullies were gently sloping
hollows, filled with a rich black soil, and covered with an open brush
vegetation at their upper part; but, lower down, large rocks protruded,
until the narrow gully, with perpendicular walls, sunk rapidly into the
deep chasm, down which the boldest chamois hunter would not have dared to
descend. I now determined to examine the country to the southward; and,
as it was late and my horse very foot-sore, I remained for the night at
the next grassy flat, and sent Charley back to order my companions to
remove the camp next morning as far down the creek as possible, in order
to facilitate the examination, which, on foot, in this climate, was
exceedingly exhausting.
Nov. 19. - I appeased my craving hunger, which had been well tried for
twenty hours, on the small fruit of a species of Acmena which grew near
the rocks that bounded the sandy flats, until my companions brought my
share of stewed green hide.
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