40 
WANDERINGS IN 
FIRST 
.TOURNEY. 
Immense 
plain. 
Creek. 
but dispersed wherever they have found a place level 
enough for a lodgement. Before you ascend the 
hill, you see at intervals an acre or two of wood, 
then an open space, with a few huts on it; then 
wood again, and then an open space; and so on; 
till the intervening of the western hills, higher and 
steeper still, and crowded with trees of the loveliest 
shades, closes the enchanting scene. 
At the base of this hill stretches an immense plain, 
which appears to the eye, on this elevated spot, as 
level as a bowling green. The mountains on the 
other side are piled one upon the other in romantic 
forms, and gradually retire, till they are undiscern- 
ible from the clouds in which they are involved. 
To the south-south-w r est this far-extending plain is lost 
in the horizon. The trees on it, which look like islands 
on the ocean, add greatly to the beauty of the land¬ 
scape ; while the rivulet’s course is marked out by 
the seta trees wdiich follow its meanders. 
Not being able to pursue the direct course from 
hence to the next Indian habitation, on account of 
the floods of water which fall at this time of the year, 
you take a circuit westerly along the mountain’s foot. 
At last a large and deep creek stops your progress : 
it is wide and rapid, and its banks very steep. 
There is neither curial nor canoe, nor purple-heart 
tree in the neighbourhood to make a wood skin to 
carry you over, so that you are obliged to swim 
across ; and by the time you have formed a kind of 
raft, composed of boughs of trees and coarse grass, 
to ferry over your baggage, the day will be too far 
