United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Ain't it clean now?" I burst into a roar of laughter, for the poor fellow's face was not only thoroughly grubby, but decorated with two good-sized smudges of tar. "You mean it's dirty, Mr Nat," he said seriously. "All right; I'll go and scrub it."
In the course of the day we made a march of twenty-five miles in a south-south-east direction, the whole of this distance being across elevated undulating sandy plains, covered with a thick prickly scrub, about two and a half feet high; these plains were however occasionally studded with a few Banksia trees, but anything more dark, cheerless, and barren than their general appearance can scarcely be conceived.
Over the rocks they had to take care; and in the dense, obstructing scrub they had to haul through by main force. But this was child's play to what awaited them in the slimy, shifting, and boulder-strewn bog they had to pass before reaching the hillocks which commanded Louisbourg. The first attempts here were disastrous.
But twelve bitter white men looked down upon this scene from the scrub and rocks above, and their teeth were set. Barlas, their leader, turned to them and said: "This court is open. Are you ready?" The click of twelve rifles was the reply. When these twelve white jurymen rode away from the ravine there was not one but believed that justice had been done by the High Court of Budgery-Gar.
They caught that first, and then they caught him. He had 'planted' in a clump of scrub, and they nearly passed him, but Len caught sight of him, and they had him in a minute." "Did he come easily?" asked Wally. "Rather not! He sent old Len flying gave him an awful black eye.
We came upon several lagoons, and found some very fine grass: the scrub reappeared on the rising ground about six miles north from the large sheet of water. A little farther on, we came to ridges of basaltic formation, openly timbered with silver-leaved Ironbark, and richly covered with young grasses and herbs, identical with those of the Darling Downs.
"As the hunter looks upon the snow and says, Here but yesterday there passed a rabbit; and here by the willow scrub it stood and listened, and heard, and was afraid; and here it turned upon its trail; and here it went with great swiftness, leaping wide; and here, with greater swiftness and wider leapings, came a lynx; and here, where the claws cut deep into the snow, the lynx made a very great leap; and here it struck, with the rabbit under and rolling belly up; and here leads off the trail of the lynx alone, and there is no more rabbit, as the hunter looks upon the markings of the snow and says thus and so and here, dost thou, too, look upon the paper and say thus and so and here be the things old Imber hath done?"
Evidently "Ingup" stood for water; for he presently took us to a small granite rock and pointed out a soak or rock-hole, we could not say which. Whilst we stooped to examine the water-hole, our guide escaped into the scrub and was soon lost to view. Near the rock we found his camp. A few branches leaning against a bush formed his house.
The pine-trees gave way to stunted larches, and these to pine scrub and bare scree, up which he scrambled, clutching at the tough bushes, terribly out of breath, his heart pumping, the sweat streaming into his eyes. He had no feeling now but wonder whether he would get to the top before he dropped, exhausted.
"Anyway, I am sorry you didn't tell him," I said. "Well, I'm not," declared papa. The rest of the day fairly flew. The last night came, and the baby was put to bed. I undressed him, which he regarded as such a joke that he worked himself into a fever of excitement. He loves to scrub like Josie, the cook.
Word Of The Day