spacious glen surrounded on
all sides but the N.W. by mountains such as I have described, recalling
to my memory the most imaginative efforts of Mr. Martin's saepia drawing,
and showing how far the painter's fancy may anticipate nature. But, at
the gorge of this valley, there stood a sort of watch-tower, as if to
guard the entrance, so like a work of art, that even here, where men and
kangaroos were equally wild and artless, I was obliged to look very
attentively, to be quite convinced that the tower was the work of nature
only. A turret with a pointed roof, of a colour corresponding, first
appeared through the trees, as if it had been built on the summit of a
round hill. On a nearer approach the fine tints of the yellowish grey
rocks, and the small pines climbing the sides of a hill abruptly rising
out of a forest of common trees, presented still a very remarkable
object. I named the valley "Glen Turret," and this feature "Tower
Almond," after an ancient castle, the scene of many early associations,
and now quite as uninhabited as this. Passing through Glen Turret, we
ascended the nearest summit on the right, and from it beheld a prospect
most cheering, after our toils amid rocky ravines. On the westward, the
rocky range seemed to terminate abruptly towards the north, in an
elevated point, which seemed to command an extensive view over the
unknown W. and N.W. Out of that region two isolated mountain masses arose
from an open country, and were clothed with open forests to their
summits. Further eastward, masses of mountain in the extreme distance
appeared covered, also, with open forests, and presented finely rounded
outlines, not likely to impede our passage, in any direction. But towards
the N.W. our view was not so extensive; like the uncertain future, it
still lay hid. The retrospect was very extensive, including Mount Faraday
in the extreme distance, and which thus afforded me a valuable back angle
for the correction of our longitude from any errors of detailed survey.
The lofty mass of Buckland's Table Land still overlooked all from the E.,
and I could here again intersect its three principal points. The view
back to the Pass was very fine, for the rocks and wood were so blended on
the bold summits, as to present sublime studies for the artist. Far to
the westward, an interior line of cliffy range resembled a sea beach,
presenting a crescent, concave on that side, apparently the limit to the
basin of the Nogoa, and