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As far as their eyes could reach they could see nothing but sandhills, with stunted weeds and clumps of grass which seemed to be struggling hard to maintain a foothold in the arid soil. They had marched perhaps ten miles from their last camp when George Ackerman, who was riding by Captain Clinton's side, discovered something.
To the right lay the sandhills, a place of unsteady outline, earth and sky alike pale and blurred as the north-west wind fled seawards, lifting and whirling the fine particles till the air seemed full of them; it was impossible to think of any one choosing that way. "We will go down the road to begin with," Julia said, and started.
I found it sincere and youthful, disjointed but well-written; descriptions of sandhills and ostriches sandwiched with doubts concerning a future state, and convictions regarding the moral and physical superiority of women: but of art nothing; that is to say, art as I understand it, rhythmical sequence of events described with rhythmical sequence of phrase.
No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation, if the secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they look down immediately on the beach and sea. But here Alan came to a full stop. "Davie," said he, "this is a kittle passage!
We halted for the night on the borders of a small lake which washed the base of a ridge of sandhills about three hundred feet high, having walked in direct distance sixteen miles.
He missed seeing Kaipara Harbour, one of the few good ones on the west coast, and describes the land as having a most desolate and inhospitable appearance, nothing but sandhills with hardly a sign of vegetation on them, and says: "If we was once clear of it, I am determined not to come so near again if I can avoid it, unless we have a very favourable wind indeed."
From its summit numerous hills and bluffs can be seen; to the South spinifex plains and ridges; to the South-East a tabletop between two bluffs; to the West a low line of stony hills, beyond them a limitless sea of sandhills; to the North-West a broken range of peaks, and, far distant, a large hill swaying in the haze of heat. From the foot of the hill a hunting-fire was seen close by.
The track from Wailuku to Heiku is over a Sahara in miniature, a dreary expanse of sand and shifting sandhills, with a dismal growth in some places of thornless thistles and indigo, and a tremendous surf thunders on the margin. Trackless, glaring, choking, a guide is absolutely necessary to a stranger, for the footprints or wheel- marks of one moment are obliterated the next.
It was the custom for practically, all Kaffrarian stock-farmers to trek down to the coast with their stock for the three winter months. Then the range of forest-clothed sandhills forming the coastline held a succession of camps. The scenery was enchanting; every valley brimmed with evergreen forest, and between the valleys sloped downs, clothed with rich grass.
And that was but the opening, for within a minute, from on every side, from far out among the rocks to the west, from the sandhills across the stream, from little heaps of brush and weed and cactus in the flats, from the distant screen of the willows in the stream bed, little puffs of white sulphur smoke jutted into the slanting sunshine, and the pulseless air of declining day was suddenly set to stir and throb by the crackle of encircling musketry.
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