98 
No. II. 
At the TVhelanian Pools we remained two days, during which we 
were out in all directions on the surrounding spurs. Whelan and 
myself went up the creek towards Bartle Frere, a wild and beautiful 
glen, where the water comes down in small cascades, with deep clear 
pools between, and lovely ferns and flowering orchids growing every- 
where in glorious profusion. The reader will have some idea of the 
variety of ferns on Bellenden-Ker when told that Mr. Bailey met with 
and collected specimens of 112 distinct species ! All the way up this 
creek were fresh camps of the myalls, small temporary dwellings in the 
usual segment of a dome shape, bent boughs covered by fern leaves or 
the fronds of the lawyer palm. But the wild children of the mountains 
had received intimation of the approach of the expedition, for such a 
mighty host walked not in silence through the lonely scrubs any more 
than Lucifer's army through the affrighted Deep, and they had tucked up 
their legs like the Arabs and silently slithered away, as the poet sweetly 
remarks inhis usual high-souled regard for the eternal unfitness of things. 
Doubtless they were cautiously watchiug us on some commanding 
eminence from whence they could emigrate, if necessary, in the fastest 
time on record. In all the camps were heaps of nutshells or nuts 
unbroken. In none of them was there a bone of any kind. Throughout 
the expedition I saw at least a hundred camps, and not a bone visible 
except the shoulder-blade of a horse on the summit of Barnard's Spur. 
After eating small animals or birds they probably throw the small 
bones in the fire and fling the others into the scrub. On the second 
day Whelan and Broadbent went up the same creek, Bailey was over 
in the dark fern gully, and I ascended the left-hand creek that came 
from the centre defiles of Bellenden-Ker. The costume worn by 
"Whelan and myself consisted solely of a close-fitting flannel, with sleeves 
down to the wrist, a pair of elastic merino di'awers, and light sand 
shoes with grooved gutta-percha soles. In the rocky beds of the creeks 
we usually walked barefooted, even the sand shoe not being trusted 
where a slip of the foot might mean certain death. It is quite impossible 
to give any picture of the savage grandeur of these two creeks, when 
you ascend to where they are falling in magnificent cascades from the 
summits of overhanging rocks, descending in a hundred streams down the 
smooth faces of dark cliffs, rushing with thunder- tones through caverned 
rocks, or circling in the centre of immense circular cauldrons cut 
from the solid granite. " And everywhere beautiful mosses and ferns, 
parasites and epiphytes, and creeping and climbing plants scattered 
profusely, as if nature had wantonly run riot in the uncontrollable 
madness of floral luxuriance. Beside th^ camp at the Pools was a 
perfect natural bath in the solid rock, about 100 feet long, 20 feet 
wide, and 10 feet deep. The water entered by a cascade at one end 
and left it by a cascade at the other. About 600 yards below the camp, 
down the main creek, a large stream entered on the east side, 
descending from the dark scrub on the face of the Main Eange. It 
fell clear from the face of a rock 100 feet into a deep pool below. I 
managed to climb up on one side of this fall and reach the summit. 
Standing on a small plateau of rock across which the stream ran to 
the edge of the precipice, I beheld a scene that cast summarily into 
the shade all ever witnessed of similar magnitude. At my feet was a 
dark unfathomable pool between two walls of tall polished cliffs, like 
