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Box-tree flats, of more or less extent, were intercepted by abrupt barren craggy hills composed of sandstone, which seemed to rest on layers of argillaceous rock. The latter was generally observed at the foot of the hills and in the bed of the river; it had in most places been worn by the action of water.
Whatever water we had passed, since the morning we commenced our journey over the Stony Desert, was not to be depended upon for more than four or five days, and although we might reckon with some certainty on the native well in the box-tree forest, the supply it had yielded was so very small that we could not expect to obtain more from it than would suffice ourselves and one or two of the horses.
These flooded plains are generally torn to pieces by cracks of four, six, and eight feet deep, of a depth, indeed, far below that at which I should imagine trees draw their support; but the box-tree spreads its roots very near the surface of the ground, having, I suppose, no prominent tap root, and can therefore receive no moisture from such a soil as that in which we so often found it in premature decay; the excess of moisture at one time, and the want of it at another, must be injurious to trees and plants of all kinds, and this circumstance may be a principal cause of the deficiency of timber in the interior of Australia.
In springtime all is fruitful, all sweet things blossom in spring, and night and dawn are evenly meted to men. A fowler, while yet a boy, was hunting birds in a woodland glade, and there he saw the winged Love, perched on a box-tree bough.
At the end could be distinguished two beds side by side, one large and one small. Above the little bed hung a woman's portrait, and above the portrait a branch of holy box-tree. The lamp was placed over the fireplace, where a little fire was burning.
On gaining the top of the ridge, we saw an open box-tree forest, and a small column of smoke rising up from amongst the trees, towards which we silently bent our steps. Our approach had however been noticed by the natives, who no doubt were at the place not a minute before, but had now fled.
There is nothing to be called agriculture, for in our gradual ascent we have alternately left behind us the vine, corn, maize, walnuts and other fruit trees, reaching the zone of the gentian, the box-tree, the larch, and the pine. These apparently arid limestone slopes and summits, however, have velvety patches here and there, and such scattered pastures are a source of almost incredible wealth.
On gaining more open ground, the country gradually rose before us, and a ferruginous conglomerate cropped out in places. We at length began our descent towards the valley of the Darling. The country became better wooded: the box-tree was growing on partially flooded land, and there was no deficiency of grass. Mr. Browne went on a-head with Toonda and Flood, whilst I and Mr.
A soldier contrived to obtain the egg and crush it on the breast of the giant, who immediately expired. In another Breton tale the life of a giant resides in an old box-tree which grows in his castle garden; and to kill him it is necessary to sever the tap-root of the tree at a single blow of an axe without injuring any of the lesser roots.
In the afternoon we travelled over large bare plains, of a most difficult and distressing kind, the ground absolutely yawning underneath us, perfectly destitute of vegetation, and denuded of timber, excepting here and there, where a stunted box-tree was to be seen. While on the sand hills, the general covering of which was spinifex, there were a few hakea and low shrubs.
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