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The horizon is clear in the south, but in the north-west dark, but not forbidding clouds are rising; fantastic cloudlets float high up in the firmament; rooks coming home to roost are plainly visible several miles away against the brilliant western sky. This Great Western Railway runs through some of the finest bits of old England.
It was an expedition organised partly by the Imperial, and partly by the Colonial Governments, and was also aided by private subscription. Frank Gregory, the successful explorer of the Gascoyne, was put in charge of it. They left Perth in the DOLPHIN for Nickol Bay, on the north-west coast, where they intended to land their horses and commence operations.
On coming down we saw the boat in the water loaded, when, all hands getting aboard, we shoved off and stood out through the reef with a fair breeze from the north-west and a smooth sea. The wind would have been directly against us had we been bound for Japan, so we were glad that we had decided to sail to the southward.
When Mr Meldrum gained the deck, in company with the captain, he found the wind still blowing with terrific force and a dangerous sea on, although as the gale had not shifted during the last hour from the north-west, to which quarter it had finally veered, there was some hope that they had escaped from the worst of the cyclone and were now being hurried along its outside edge.
In this distress of thought it was so ordered by good Providence, that on the twenty-first day we thought we spied a sail coming from the north-west, which caused us to delay our lots till we should see whether it would discover us or not: we hung up some jackets upon our oars, to be seen as far off as we could, but had so little strength left we could make no way towards it; however, it happened to direct its course so much to our relief, that an hour before sunset it was within a league of us, but seemed to bear away more eastward, and our fear was that they should not know our distress, for we were not able to make any noise from our throats that might be heard fifty yards; but the carpenter, who was still the best man amongst us, with much ado getting one of the guns to go off, in less than half-an-hour she came up with us, and seeing our deplorable condition, took us all on board, to the number of eleven.
We have but scanty remains from the midden heaps along its ancient shores to tell us about the kind of folk these early settlers were, but so far as the evidence goes it supports the supposition that the Nordic type was already in possession of north-west Europe before the dawn of the Neolithic period.
A corporal of engineers, in the absence of his chief, had received orders to blow up the bridge outside the western gate, as soon as the pursuers were at hand; but, alarmed by the volleys of Sacken's Russians, whom Blücher had sent to work round by the river courses north-west of the town, the bewildered subaltern fired the mine while the rearguard and a great crowd of stragglers were still on the eastern side.
From the same cause, vessels which brought emigrants to the colony were not secured during the winter season in the safest anchorages, and being exposed to the fury of the north-west gales, were in too many instances, driven ashore and completely wrecked.
"The chamber on the north-west corner, which, as far as we know, has been shut up ever since?" "Yes, I remember your suspicion as to foul play on the part of Mrs. Allen, who, it is believed, has never visited the apartment since the Captain's death." "Well, you will be surprised to hear that the shutters are unclosed, and lights burning in that chamber." "Now!" "Yes or at least half an hour ago."
Hard land as many have found it, hard though it had been in many ways for Dick, the North-west had forced its bracing, stimulating spirit into his being and made him the man he was, just so surely as the northland wilderness had made of Jan the wonderful hound he now was.