The herbage was
exceedingly fine and green, and it was a most excellent place for an
encampment. The trees formed the greatest charm of the scene; they
were so beautifully white and straight. It could not be said of this
place that:
"The gnarled, knotted trunks Eucalyptian,
Seemed carved like weird columns Egyptian;
With curious device, quaint inscription,
And hieroglyph strange."
The high Mount Labouchere bore 8 degrees 20' east of north, the
latitude was 25 degrees 3', longitude 117 degrees 59', and the
variation 4 degrees 28' west. The wind blew fiercely from the east,
and seemed to betoken a change in the weather. From a hill to the
north of us we could see that small watercourses descended from low
hills to the north and joined the river at various points, one of
which, from a north-easterly direction, I shall follow. The country in
that direction seemed very rough and stony. We shot a number of ducks
and pigeons here. No natives came near us, although Saleh picked up a
burning fire-stick close to the camp, dropped by some wandering
savage, who had probably taken a very keen scrutiny and mental
photograph of us all, so as to enable him to give his
fellow-barbarians a full, true, and particular account of the wild and
hideous beings who had invaded their territory. The water-hole was
nearly three miles long; no other water was to be found in any of the
other channels in the neighbourhood.
