Brú na Bóinne

“ Many overlanders took advantage of the port by shearing or lambing their sheep wherever a chance offered, and after obtaining supplies for the road, were prepared to extend their search for new country still further away. The Bowen River country is very interesting and its scenery most picturesque; it has first-class grazing qualities, small open plains, with patches of brigalow scrub scattered over black-soil country. Sandstone ranges bound the creeks on the coast side, whence they come down to the main stream. ”

“ The pursuers were too near for that.
Then a cry burst from his lips. Like a revelation, there flashed upon him a scene from the past: a deep, narrow gorge, yet too wide for man to cross it by leaping—a hunter standing upon the verge, peering downward, supporting himself by a stout grape-vine that dangled from the horizontal limb of the gnarled elm tree. By its aid an active man could cross the ravine.
Calling upon Dare to increase his exertions, Boone darted forward with the speed of a hunted deer through the now less dense forest. ”

“ Between Ballina and Byron Bay one gets some beautiful land and sea-scapes. I guess the bloke who rushes round in a motor car never has time to appreciate half of what he goes to see. Tramping along on Shanks's pony one can stop and admire occasionally. I lay under the beam of Cape Byron light that night, slept like a top, and was up early next day to try and make Murwillumbah by dark. Didn't do it.
I crossed the lovely little Brunswick River by punt, and made the pace along the fine road winding up the height of land between the river and Crabbe's Creek. ”

“ The red men fought for the Paradise—fought till it was drenched with blood, but no tribe, without mortal challenge from another straightway, could ever call a rood its own. Boone loved the land from the moment the eagle eye in his head swept its shaking wilderness from a mountain-top, and every man who followed him loved the land no less. ”

“ So the twilight comes down, the light lessens in the west, and the wide landscape is wrapt in deep and solemn gloom, as though it had been a land in which man’s presence was unknown. While yet the sun was high in heaven, the missionary had quitted his boat in the estuary of the River Boyne, and had passed on foot along the river valley towards the interior of Meath. Evening found the little band encamped upon a grassy ridge on the north side of the Boyne, and overlooking the winding channel of that river. To the south, some miles away, the hill of Tara was in sight. ”

“ At the end of the village, seeing a woman standing at the door of one of the ruinous cottages, I asked her the name of the brook, or torrent, which came down the valley. “The Tarw,” said she, “and this village is called Pandy Teirw.”
“Why is the streamlet called the bull?” said I. “Is it because it comes in winter weather roaring down the glen and butting at the Ceiriog?”
The woman laughed, and replied that perhaps it was. The valley was wild and solitary to an extraordinary degree, the brook or torrent running in the middle of it covered with alder trees. ”

“ As soon, therefore, as the other settlers had composed themselves to rest, Boone went out and seated himself upon a fallen tree, prepared to spend the night in watchfulness. His ears were alive to the slightest sound and he could instantly detect the origin of each. Now and again the stillness of the forest would be broken by the howl of a wolf, or the hoot of an owl. At such times the hunter would raise his head and listen intently, for the Indians imitated the cries of birds and animals in signalling to one another. ”

“ From behind a knoll near the mouth of the canyon the Black Bear saw the soldiers of “D” Troop drive the horses out upon the plain and toward the north. As he knew all the vast domain of his people Shoz-Dijiji knew this plain, knew it as he knew the wrinkles in the face of Sons-ee-ah-ray, knew the route the soldiers would take across it, knew the windings of the dry wash that cut deeply through it from the canyon’s mouth. ”

“ By hunting, the explorers must feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they must on their return recompense those who had supplied their outfit. Boone, the incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years ever in debt for an outfit.
Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the Ohio, they continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward. ”

“ In the course of a day or two more, the travellers entered that wild and broken tract of the Crow country called the Black Hills, and here their journey became toilsome in the extreme. Rugged steeps and deep ravines incessantly obstructed their progress, so that a great part of the day was spent in the painful toil of digging through banks, filling up ravines, forcing the wagons up the most forbidding ascents, or swinging them with ropes down the face of dangerous precipices. ”

“ The surf broke in a white line of foam along the shores of the bay, and its measured swell floated upon the air like the voice of a distant cataract. Fields of verdure covered the ravines; ruined and moss-covered walls were scattered over each eminence; and the straw huts of the inhabitants were almost 25 imbosomed in trees, in the midst of the valley, and jets of smoke arose out of the groves and floated off gently in the calm air of the morning. In all the shore, but one spot, a single opening among the rocks, seemed accessible to man. ”

“ Every day for a week a man came in a boat to scatter corn in the rushes at a certain point along the bank of the Big River, and every day Blacky the Crow watched him and shook his black head and talked to himself and told himself that he didn't like it, and that he was sure that it was for no good purpose. ”

“ How the people without shoes bore it, I cannot imagine. Never shall I forget the extraordinary spectacle that met our sight the moment we passed the low range of bushes which formed a screen in front of the river. A crowd of many hundred Irish emigrants had been landed during the present and former day; and all this motley crew—men, women, and children, who were not confined by sickness to the sheds (which greatly resembled cattle-pens) were employed in washing clothes, or spreading them out on the rocks and bushes to dry. ”

“ In Scotland there are Braemar (the hilly district of Mar) ; Braidalbane (the hill country of Albainn, i.e. Scotland) ; Braeriach (the gray mountain, riabhach) ; the Brerachin, a river and district [30] in Perthshire; Brugh and Bruighean, in Ireland, signifying originally a hill, was subsequently applied to a palace or a distinguished residence. The term, as applied to the old residences, presupposed the existence of a fortified brugh or rath, several of which still remain. The word has suffered many corruptions: thus Bruree, in Limerick, is from Brugh-righ (the king’s fort) ”

“ The Wind River Mountains are notorious in hunters’ and trappers’ stories: their rugged defiles, and the rough tracts about their neighborhood, having been lurking places for the predatory hordes of the mountains, and scenes of rough encounter with Crows and Blackfeet. It was to the west of these mountains, in the valley of the Seeds-ke-dee Agie, or Green River, that Captain Bonneville intended to make a halt for the purpose of giving repose to his people and his horses after their weary journeying ”

“ The brook, after disappearing for a time, shows itself again far down in the valley, and is doubtless one of the tributaries of the Tan y Bwlch river, perhaps the very same brook the name of which I could not learn the preceding day in the vale.
As I was gazing on the prospect, an old man driving a peat cart came from the direction in which I was going. I asked him the name of the ravine, and he told me it was Ceunant Coomb, or hollow-dingle coomb. ”

“ The island of Borva lay warm and green and bright under a blue sky; there were no white curls of foam on Loch Roag, but only the long Atlantic swell coming in to fall on the white beach; away over there in the South the fine grays and purples of the giant Suainabhal shone in the sunlight amid the clear air; and the beautiful sea-pyots flew about the rocks, their screaming being the only sound audible in the stillness. The King of Borva was down by the shore, seated on a stool, and engaged in the idyllic operation of painting a boat which had been hauled up on the sand. ”

“ In the interior they are pulverized and used for food whenever provisions are short. In the spring when hay becomes scarce fish are often fed to the livestock.
Passing the farm, Utlið, the out-folk or the people beyond, we wound around the shingly side of Bjarnafell, Bear-Mountain, [2] and descended to the plain which proved to be a bog saturated with the recent rain. Lord Dufferin in his Letters from High Latitudes calls this place “an Irish bog.” The crossing was anything but pleasant for the ponies. Many deeply worn trails crossed the plain towards Geysir. ”

“ The wagon had, besides, to struggle across many of those high, upland bogs which are the terror of the transport-rider in summer-time. The worst and biggest of these is a wide expanse something like an [Pg 81] Irish bog or a wet Salisbury Plain, which the Portuguese call Bourru-Bourru, from the native Vulu-Vulu. It is over five thousand feet above the sea, and so bare and dreary that when the natives see a white man with a great bald head they call it his Vulu-Vulu. ”

“ After passing Beit Thamr, the road enters a valley, called Brouk, filled with small streams, the last which are met with till close upon Derna. Above, on the heights, are ruins of a castle, and along the valley many excavations, one of which, containing a fountain, has a number of niches, as if for votive offerings or statues. Here the road begins to ascend through a beautiful wooded country, affording cover to numbers of the red-legged partridge, of which we started whole coveys at every turn. ”

“ We turned northeast, and came onto Horse Creek, camping just below its mouth, under a high, steep bluff, in a fine grove of cottonwoods. Everything seemed deathly still. We were in the borders of the Crow and Blackfeet Indians' country, with jaded horses, so that if we were discovered it would be impossible to escape. We began to feel a little concern for our scalps, for we were aware that both the Crows and the Blackfeet were hostile. We gathered our wood, taking care that no branch or anything connected with our fire would make much blaze or smoke, lest by it we should be discovered. ”

“ CROSSING AN ELEVATED RIDGE, Captain Bonneville now came upon Bear River, which, from its source to its entrance into the Great Salt Lake, describes the figure of a horse-shoe. One of the principal head waters of this river, although supposed to abound with beaver, has never been visited by the trapper; rising among rugged mountains, and being barricadoed [sic] by fallen pine trees and tremendous precipices. ”

“ Standing there puffing and wondering what to do next, he saw the two burros come picking their way toward the spring for their morning drink and a handful apiece of rolled oats which Barney kept to bait them into camp. The lead burro was within easy flinging distance of a rock from camp, when the thin, unmistakable crack of a rifle-shot came from the right, high up on the rim somewhere beyond Casey. The lead burro pitched forward, struggled to get up, fell again and rolled over, lodging against a rock with its four feet sticking up at awkward angles in the air. ”

“ A haze hung directly over Gabés; the palms of the oasis extended as far as the sea, and behind them glittered the bright waves. Away towards the south we could distinguish the blue peaks of [121] the Matmata mountains. Here and there on the plain blue-grey smoke rose into the air.
The heat of the sun became scorching, so we allowed our horses to go at foot’s pace during the remainder of the way. In Africa one finds but two paces—a walk, or rather an amble, and a gallop; but on a long summer journey the gallop or canter is rarely used; Berber horses, therefore, are trained to walk fast. ”

“ In an instant the meadow-born Brook writhed in pain, pressed on by thousands of Mountain-Torrents every way at once. She foamed and fought, and fought and foamed; under and over, up and below she plunged, but no escape; one weary work for ages yet to come! ”

“ CHAPTER X The Hairy Men
For several moons now, Urb, the Neanderthal, and his tribe had found it increasingly difficult to locate game in the neighborhood of the family caves. The reason could be any one of several: a nearby water-hole dried up until the rainy season came again; a family of lions holed up close by; an absence of adequate pasturage.
Urb sat crouched near the foot of a lofty escarpment that contained the tribal caves. His deep-sunk button eyes, beneath beetling brows, indifferently watched the young ones of the tribe playing about the clearing between jungle and cliff. ”

“ There was no one in sight, no smoke from any dwelling; all was as still as if it were a valley of the dead. Only from the upper air the larks were singing, and the melancholy peewits cried ever over the lower moorlands. From this place my course was clear; I went up the prattling Wandel Burn, from where it entered the river, and soon I was once more lost in the windings of the dark hills. There is a narrow bridle-path which follows the burn, leading from Broughton in Tweeddale to Abington, so the way was easier walking. ”