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An animal does not lay out his road in sections of perfectly straight lines connected by mathematical curves, neither does he fill up gullies nor cut through hills, when it is so easy to go around these obstructions. The boy, who sat and dreamed at the water's edge, was in his eighteenth year or thereabouts, slenderly proportioned, and with well-cut features.
The green tree ant was very numerous, particularly in the nonda trees, where they form their nests. Another cow was abandoned to-day. The total day's stage was 8 miles. The party camped in the sandy bed of the river. A little rain was experienced at night. 'November' 19. The party followed down parallel with the Staaten, so as to avoid the scrub and broken sandstone gullies on the banks.
Obliged to keep out some distance from the ravine, to avoid the small gullies emptying into it and the various elbows which it made, about noon we struck upon a large trail, running directly west; this we followed, and on reaching the main chasm, found that it led to the only place where there was any chance of crossing.
Much nearer and a bit below drowsed the old town of Calderon, home of many of our peons, a bright red blanket hung over a stone wall giving a splash of brilliancy to the vast stretch of grayish, dull-brown, and thirsty green. The road wound slowly down and ever down, until the gullies grew warmer as the rising mountains cut off the breeze and left the sun in undisputed command.
On the sides of the chalk hills, though not on their summits, these streams cut narrow gullies and glens. Wherever, in fact, there is hilly, broken ground, the little rills form these broken ravines and gullies, often only a few yards in width from side to side. Usually these brooklet valleys are choked with brambles or fern, and filled with rank undergrowth.
It was out of the question to attempt anything beyond a walk. The sides of the gullies, which had to be ascended and descended, though never reaching to the picturesque proportions of precipices, were yet sufficiently steep and rough to make very fatiguing riding for a lady unaccustomed to such exercise. And George Eliot was in no very robust condition of health at the time.
The pretty shrub called el-egl droops beneath the rocks of Silsilis over the water, accompanied sometimes by a dwarf willow; and the sandy earth, washed down the gullies on the western bank in winter, produces a plentiful crop of the sakarân a plant bearing a seed which has intoxicating qualities, as the name imports, and which is said to be used by robbers to poison or stupify persons whom they wish to rifle at their leisure.
As we traversed the higher levels all vegetation ceased, excepting the Pista tree already alluded to; yet there must have been some herbage in the gullies, as we saw several flocks of wild goats, so wild indeed that it was impossible to get within rifle range of them.
By climbing over rocks thick with periwinkles, and splashing through great sloppy stretches of crinkled sea-weed, which give a raw stench of brine, I entered the first of the gullies: a narrow, long, winding one, with sides polished by the sea-wash, and the floor rising inwards.
It was: When first under fire, if you're wishful to duck, Don't look or take heed of the man that is struck; Be thankful you're living and trust to your luck, And march to your front like a soldier." We portaged all day through gullies and swamps and over rough ridges, covering in all about two miles and a half.
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