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We were again fortunate in procuring water by digging only two feet under the sand-hills, which were here very high, and were a continuation of those in which we had first found water on the 3rd.
The sun is at its height; there is no north wind to clear the air; and the heavy tropical rains more than three times as much in quantity as falls in England in the whole year come down in a short rainy season of four months. The water filters through the sand-hills, and forms great stagnant lagoons; a rank tropical vegetation springs up, and the air is soon filled with pestilential vapours.
San Francisco, a truly fascinating city to live in, is stately and handsome at a fair distance, but close at hand one notes that the architecture is mostly old-fashioned, many streets are made up of decaying, smoke-grimed, wooden houses, and the barren sand-hills toward the outskirts obtrude themselves too prominently.
He discovered two forms going in a northerly direction over the sand-hills. Half abstractedly, he went to the other window and directed the large telestope upon them. "Humph!" said he, "I declare, they're there again." Suddenly he took his eye from the telescope. "Hulloa! the girl must be mad." He put his eye down again to the telescope, and threw away his cigarette.
If we could dig through the wall and make our way out at night, and get quietly down among the sand-hills by the shore, we might manage to get hold of a boat and row out to the ships; but I do not see that there is any chance of our being able to do that when we haven't got as much as a knife among us." Jim examined the walls.
We hoped that these might be the sand-hills we were pushing for, and our hearts beat high with hope once more. It, however, soon become too dark to discern anything, and at fourteen miles from where we had halted in the morning, we were again obliged by the tide to encamp for the night, as the country behind the shore was densely scrubby, and quite impracticable as a line of route.
The sea was rolling in at this ocean door as my canoe crossed it to the next marsh thoroughfare, which connected it with Old Topsail Inlet, where the same monotonous surroundings of sand-hills and marshes are to be found. The next tidal opening was Rich Inlet, which had a strong ebb running through it to the sea.
"Let's get on with the mower." The North-west breeze was fresher than usual when, one afternoon, Helen rode through a belt of sand-hills on her way to the Charnock farm. Clouds of dust blew about the horse's feet, and now and then fine grit whistled past her head. She had her back to the boisterous wind, but she urged the horse until they got behind a grove of scrub poplars.
Batouch was to meet them at the entrance to the city, and when they had seen the marvels of its market-place was to conduct them to the tents which would be pitched on the sand-hills outside. Their horses pulled as if they, too, longed for a spell of city life after the life of the wastes, and Domini's excitement grew.
The tide being high, we were compelled to seek the harder ground on the summit of the sand-hills, as the mosquitoes and sand-flies rendered walking on the sand excessively disagreeable.
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