or else get it out
of the roots of trees. The scrubs became thicker and thicker, and only
at intervals could the mountain be seen. At a spot where the natives
had burnt the old grass, and where some new rich vegetation grew, I
gave my horse the benefit of an hour's rest, for he had come
twenty-two miles. The day was delightful; the thermometer registered
only 76 degrees in the shade. I had had a very poor breakfast, and now
had an excellent appetite for all the dinner I could command, and I
could not help thinking that there is a great deal of sound philosophy
in the Chinese doctrine, That the seat of the mind and the intellect
is situate in the stomach.

Starting again and gaining a rise in the dense ocean of scrub, I got a
sight of the mountain, whose appearance was most wonderful; it seemed
so rifted and riven, and had acres of bare red rock without a shrub or
tree upon it. I next found myself under the shadow of a huge rock
towering above me amidst the scrubs, but too hidden to perceive until
I reached it. On ascending it I was much pleased to discover, at a
mile and a half off, the gum timber of a creek which meandered through
this wilderness. On gaining its banks I was disappointed to find that
its channel was very flat and poorly defined, though the timber upon
it was splendid. Elegant upright creamy stems supported their
umbrageous tops, whose roots must surely extend downwards to a
moistened soil. On each bank of the creek was a strip of green and
open ground, so richly grassed and so beautifully bedecked with
flowers that it seemed like suddenly escaping from purgatory into
paradise when emerging from the recesses of the scrubs on to the banks
of this beautiful, I wish I might call it, stream.

Opposite to where I struck it stood an extraordinary hill or ridge,
consisting of a huge red turtle back having a number of enormous red
stones almost egg-shaped, traversing, or rather standing in a row
upon, its whole length like a line of elliptical Tors. I could compare
it to nothing else than an enormous oolitic monster of the turtle kind
carrying its eggs upon its back. A few cypress pine-trees grew in the
interstices of the rocks, giving it a most elegant appearance. Hoping
to find some rock or other reservoir of water, I rode over to this
creature, or feature. Before reaching its foot, I came upon a small
piece of open, firm, grassy ground, most beautifully variegated with
many-coloured vegetation, with a smal