96 THE BURDEKIN VALLEY. 



line of prominent hills. Where the river is crossed the hills on 

 each side of it, would form a gorge were not the width of 

 the river greater than the length of the gorge. Had felsitic 

 rocks occurred here on a more extensive scale, it seems 

 reasonable to presume that a gorge would have existed. 

 It follows, therefore, that the change again to granite 

 country is the cause of the river valley widening out once 

 more to seeming maturity as we proceed downstream. 

 In the reverse order, it is not till a change of country once 

 more occurs, and the hard felsite hills close in to the river 

 that it enters the gorge and passes over the falls that have 

 drawn the attention of })hysiographers. 



On the river's first entering the gorge, the wide, sandy 

 bed gives place to one of hare boulder- strewn rock over 

 which, at ordinary times, the water flows in two streams 

 for perhaps half- a- mile, and then with a drop of 50 or 60 

 feet forms the two falls illustrated. Below these, within a mile 

 and a-half, the river falls in three or four places another 

 50 feet, passing through a rocky gorge whose width is the 

 width of the river bed. The sides of the gorge can only be 

 climbed here and there as the lower 100 feet c»r so are 

 exceedingly steep whe/"e not perpendicular. Above this 

 the hills are rounded and rise to the height of some 500 

 feet above the river on either side. 



Further down the river the valley widens out a little 

 here and there, but for 20 miles the river winds its way 

 through mountain ranges from 1500 to 2000 feet in height. 

 The river bed is excessively rough ; and to travel down it 

 ean only be done on foot (sometimes, probably, with the 

 assistance of the hands) and necessitates swimming the 

 crocodile-haunted stream at frequent intervals, while to 

 journey along the side of the river entails the ascending 

 and descending of spur after spur and mountain after 

 mountain. In the 20 miles of its course through the 

 mountains, there are said to be very few places where 

 cattle can get down to the river, so rough and steep are 

 its banks. 



Though so rough as to its bed and steep as to its sides, 

 no further faUs are said to occur of more than a foot or two 

 m drop before the river emerges from the ranges and once 

 more assumes the even tenor of its journey to the sea. The 



