18 
COURSE OF A HURRICANE. 
noi' should we have collected them again so soon as we did, 
or without infinite trouble, had it not been for our guide and 
my black boy. We unavoidably lost a day, but left our 
position on the 23d, for Underaliga, a station occupied by 
Doctor Harris, the gentleman I have already had occasion 
to mention. We reached the banks of the creek near the 
stock hut, about 4 pan., having journeyed during the greater 
part of the day through a poor country, partly of scrub and 
partly of open forest-land, in neither of which was the soil 
or vegetation fresh or abundant. At about three miles from 
Underaliga, the country entirely changed its character, and 
its flatness was succeeded by a broken and undulating sur- 
face. The soil upon the hills was coarse and sandy, from 
the decomposition of the granite rock that constituted their 
base. Nevertheless, the grass was abundant on the hills, 
though the roots or tufts were far apart; and the hills 
were lightly studded with trees. 
In the course of the day we crossed the line of a hurricane 
that had just swept with resistless force over the coun- 
try, preserving a due north course, and which we had heard 
from a distance, fortunately too great to admit of its in- 
juring us. It had opened a fearful gap in the forest through 
which it had passed, of about a quarter of a mile in breadth. 
Within that space, no tree had been able to withstand its 
fury, for it had wrenched every bough from such as it had 
failed to prostrate, and they stood naked in the midst of the 
surrounding wreck. I am inclined to think that the rude- 
ness of nature itself in these wild and uninhabited regions, 
