In These Valleys There Are Small Streams Of Water, Having Their
Origin In The Surrounding Hills; They All Terminate Northerly.
We could
accomplish but seven miles on a north-east by east course.
In the
evening we had an awful storm of thunder and lightning, accompanied with
torrents of rain. The reverberation of sound among the hills was
astonishing. The natives continue in our vicinity unheeded, and
unheeding: even the noise of their mogo upon the trees is a relief from
the otherwise utter loneliness of feeling we cannot help experiencing in
these desolate wilds.
August 12. - We found that we could not maintain our direct course, as
the low ground was so boggy, that the horses were altogether unable to
move on it. Keeping therefore the banks of the little stream where the
ground was firmer, we reached the chain of hills bounding the valley to
the southward: we wound along the base of the hills on a variety of
courses, not being able to quit them twenty yards without being bogged.
Finding that the hills trended too much to the south-west, we kept down
the bed of a small stream for two or three miles, and halted on a fine
apple tree flat of rich land, watered by a very fine small stream, which
was joined by the one we came down. The main strewn ran to the
northward. The apple tree flats are uniformly of firm hard ground, while
the soil on which grow the iron-bark, pine, and box, is as invariably a
loose sand, rendered by the rain a perfect quicksand. These bogs are the
more provoking, as without such impediments the country is clear and
open, and as favourable for travelling over as could be wished: we have
had any thing but a dry season, and it is to the heavy rain which might
naturally be expected to fall near high mountains, that our present
difficulties must be ascribed. We travelled between nine and ten miles,
but our course made good was nearly south-east only five miles. A few
new plants were found: the hills were a mere bed of iron ore.
August 13. - We proceeded at our usual hour; and did not halt till near
sunset, but accomplished no more than six miles, in the course of which
the horses were obliged to be unladen, and the men carried the loads
upwards of half a mile before the horses could be got across the
quicksands. They are indeed properly so termed, consisting of two or
three inches of light mould, on about eighteen inches of loose sand, the
whole covering a rocky or stony bottom. On treading on them, water would
fly up several inches; and it was with difficulty men could pass over
them, much less horses. Quicksands of a similar nature prevented our
reaching a small creek running under a high craggy ridge of hills;
we therefore stopped at the edges of them, every body completely
worn out. The appearance of the country passed over was most desolate
and forbidding, but quite open, interspersed with miserable rocky crags,
on which grew the cypress and eucalyptus.
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