At Length, After Consultation, We Determined To Steer
West And By North, By Compass, The Make Of The Land In That Quarter Indicating
The Existence Of A River.
We continued to march all day through a country
untrodden before by an European foot.
Save that a melancholy crow now and then
flew croaking over head, or a kangaroo was seen to bound at a distance,
the picture of solitude was complete and undisturbed. At four o'clock
in the afternoon we halted near a small pond of water, where we took up
our residence for the night, lighted a fire, and prepared to cook our supper:
that was, to broil over a couple of ramrods a few slices of salt pork,
and a crow which we had shot.
At daylight we renewed our peregrination; and in an hour after we found
ourselves on the banks of a river, nearly as broad as the Thames at Putney,
and apparently of great depth, the current running very slowly in
a northerly direction. Vast flocks of wild ducks were swimming in the stream;
but after being once fired at, they grew so shy that we could not get near them
a second time. Nothing is more certain than that the sound of a gun
had never before been heard within many miles of this spot.
We proceeded upwards, by a slow pace, through reeds, thickets, and a thousand
other obstacles, which impeded our progress, over coarse sandy ground,
which had been recently inundated, though full forty feet above
the present level of the river.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 32 of 247
Words from 8461 to 8720
of 66960
