I Almost Despair Of Finding Any, For The Country Being Perfectly
Level (Some Few Elevated Stations Excepted), And The Soil
A deep loose
red sand, the rain which falls must be immediately absorbed, and indeed
it is quite impossible that
Water should remain on the surface of the
land which we have travelled over since we have left the river.
At the period we quitted the river I considered our height above the
level of the sea to be about five hundred feet, an elevation too
trifling to afford a hope that any streams could rise in these regions
and flow thence into the sea. In traversing these flats, the declivity,
when it could be observed, was always towards the west and north-west,
obliging me to believe that either the country continued a desert of
sand as at present, or that its westerly inclination would cause all
that part of it to consist of marshes and swamps. Since quitting the
river we have not enjoyed what under any other circumstances would be
called drinkable water; what was found being merely the contents of
shallow mud holes, in the bottom of acacia swamps, over which the
dryness of the season alone enabled us to travel. We have uniformly been
obliged to strain our water before we drank it, and its taste, from the
decayed vegetable matter it contained, was sour and unpleasant.
June 5. - A clear cold frosty morning: sent the horses to the watering
place: if it be any way possible to get them on, it is my intention to
proceed to-morrow morning, as it is almost as much labour to them to go
for water as it would be to perform a short day's journey.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 52 of 354
Words from 13670 to 13957
of 95539
