To The
Westward,
The Land Was A Perfect Level, With Clear Spaces Or Marshes Interspersed
Amidst The Boundless Desert Of Wood.
To the east, a most stupendous
range of mountains, lifting their blue heads above the horizon, bounded
the view in that direction, and were distant at least seventy miles, the
country appearing a perfect plain between us and them.
From north-west
to north-east nothing interrupted the horizontal view, except a hill
similar to the one we were on, about five miles distant to the
north-north-west. Extended as was our prospect, it did not afford much
room for satisfactory anticipation; and there was nothing that gave us
reason to believe that any stream, either from the east or west, joined
the river for the next forty miles at least. The hill from which this
view was taken was named Mount Harris, after my friend, who accompanied
the expedition as a volunteer; that to the north-north-west, Mount
Forster, after Lieutenant Forster, of the Navy; and the lofty range
before mentioned to the eastward was distinguished by the name of
Arbuthnot's Range, after the Right Hon. C. Arbuthnot, of His Majesty's
Treasury. The two first mentioned hills are entirely of granite, from
one and a half to two miles long, by half a mile to one mile wide: their
formation must be considered a most singular geological phenomenon,
detached as they are by an immense space from all mountainous ranges,
and rising from the midst of a soft alluvial soil. Small pieces of
granite were in several places thrown into heaps, as if by human means;
and their whole surfaces were covered with similar pieces, detached from
the solid mass to which they had once belonged. If I might hazard a
conjecture, I should attribute to them a volcanic origin: I think, on
examination, their constituent parts will be found to have undergone the
action of fire, by which they have been fused together. To those
conversant in the structure of the earth, and with the means used by
nature to accomplish her purposes, these singular hills may offer a
subject for curious inquiry. The natives appear numerous in these
regions of apparent desolation: we fell in with several parties in the
course of the day, in the whole probably not less than forty, and many
fires were seen to the north. Being a mile or two ahead of our party in
a thick brush, I came suddenly upon three men; two ran off with the
greatest speed; the third, who was older and a little lame, first threw
his firestick at me, and next (seeing me still advance) a waddie, but
with such agitation, that though not more than a dozen paces distant, he
missed both me and my horse. I returned to my party, and in company with
them surprised the native camp; we found there eight women and twelve
children, just on the point of departing with their infants in their
cloaks on their backs:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 100 of 184
Words from 51614 to 52115
of 95539
