By the time I turned this, all my birds had
deserted me, and I was not, I think, more than 2000 feet from the
valley below. Just before reaching this point I first caught sight of
a Martial animal. A little creature, not much bigger than a rabbit,
itself of a sort of sandy-yellow colour, bounded from among some
yellow herbage by my feet, and hopped or sprang in the manner of a
kangaroo down the steep slope on my left. When I turned the ridge, a
wide and quite new landscape burst upon my sight. I was looking upon
an extensive plain, the continuation apparently of a valley of which
the mountain range formed the southern limit. To the southward this
plain was bounded by the sea, bathed in the peculiar light I have
tried to describe, and lying in what seemed from this distance a
glassy calm. To eastward and northward the plain extended to the
horizon, and doubtless far beyond it; while from the valley north of
the mountain range emerged a broad river, winding through the plain
till it was lost at the horizon. Plain I have called it, but I do not
mean to imply that it was by any means level.
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