We Saw Many Columns Of Dust Raised By Whirlwinds;
And Again Mistook Them For The Smoke Of So Many Fires Of The Natives.
But
we soon observed that they moved in a certain direction, and that new
columns rose as those already formed drew off; and when we came nearer,
and passed between them, it seemed as if the giant spirits of the plain
were holding a stately corrobori around us.
They originated on a patch of
ground divested of its vegetation by a late fire. There was a belt of
forest to the northward, and the current of the sea-breeze coming up the
valley of the river from N.N.W. seemed to eddy round the forest, and to
whirl the unsheltered loose earth into the air.
Towards the river, now to the west of our course, peaks, razor-backed
hills, and tents, similar to those we had observed when travelling at the
west side of the river on the 3rd December (and probably the same),
reappeared. To the east of the mountain, towards which we were
travelling, several bluff mountains appeared, which probably bounded the
valley of a river flowing to the northward, and disemboguing between the
Liverpool and Mount Morris Bay. For the last five miles of the stage, our
route lay through forest land; and we crossed two creeks going to the
east, and then came to rocky sandstone hills, with horizontal
stratification, at the foot of which we met with a rocky creek, in the
bed of which, after following it for a few miles, we found water.
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