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At twelve miles we came to a large rocky watercourse of brackish water, trending to the east-north-east, through a narrow valley bounded by dense scrub. In this we found pools of fresh water, and as there was good grass, I called a halt about three in the afternoon. We were now able, for the first time for several hundred miles, to enjoy the luxury of a swim, which we all fully appreciated.
The whole of the intervening country, between the level bank and the hills, consisted of heavy sandy ridges, a good deal covered with scrub; but we now found more grass than we had seen during the whole journey before. In the night I was taken ill again, with violent pains, accompanied by cold clammy sweats; and as the air was cold and raw, and a heavy dew falling, I suffered a great deal.
We had brought them through safely, but at the cost of how much trouble to ourselves may be judged from previous pages and the following figures. We left the Deep rock-holes with exactly 102 gallons of water; decrease by breaking through the scrub must have been considerable, as we had nearly thirty gallons of this amount in canvas bags.
Go to the wood-shed and I'll get you soap and water and other clothes. So I went to the wood-shed, and he came out with a lantern and water and clothes and I began to scrub. After I was dressed we went to the barn-yard and he held the lantern while I dug a deep hole, and the clothes, my best Sunday clothes, went down into the ground and dirt on top. And that settled courtin' for a while with me."
It is well and widely known that this oversight, small as it looks, will free a man for life from any rude inquiry as to when he is going to burn off the scrub. Alf had no scrub to burn off, except a faint moustache, unnoticeable but for its dark colour.
The various plants of which this scrub was composed corresponded with those described as forming the scrub near our first camp in the Bay. The greatest obstacles to our progress through these scrubs were the long shoots of the Flagellaria, and climbing palm. Luff and Douglas were this day taken very ill with the ague. June 29.
But let me give an idea of one of many days' fishing on the Hastings, spent with the 'Twins. Having filled a sugar-bag with 'pippies' on the ocean beach, we put on our boots and make our way through the belt of scrub to where our boat is lying, tied to the protruding roots of a tree.
With a sudden breathless cry he thrust the box on the fire. He was not hungry, but he made himself a pot of coffee and drank it. Until now he had not observed that the storm was growing steadily worse. The thick, low-hanging spruce broke the force of it. Beyond the shelter of the forest he could hear the roar of it as it swept through the thin scrub and open spaces of the edge of the Barren.
Leaving my party to rest, after the fatigue they had endured in forcing a way through the scrub, I set off after breakfast to reconnoitre our position at Refuge Rocks, and to take a series of angles.
The old woman would hardly sit down beside them, she was so humble and modest, but at length she did; and before the bag was half empty, Scrub and Fairfeather firmly believed that there must be something very noble-looking about them. The old woman was a wood-witch.