Natives had been here
very recently, and the scrubs were burning, not far off to the
northwards, in the neighbourhood of the creek channel. As night
descended, I lay me down by my bright camp fire in peace to sleep,
though doubtless there are very many of my readers who would scarcely
like to do the same. Such a situation might naturally lead one to
consider how many people have lain similarly down at night, in fancied
security, to be awakened only by the enemies' tomahawk crashing
through their skulls. Such thoughts, if they intruded themselves upon
my mind, were expelled by others that wandered away to different
scenes and distant friends, for this Childe Harold also had a mother
not forgot, and sisters whom he loved, but saw them not, ere yet his
weary pilgrimage begun.
Dreams also, between sleeping and waking, passed swiftly through my
brain, and in my lonely sleep I had real dreams, sweet, fanciful, and
bright, mostly connected with the enterprise upon which I had
embarked--dreams that I had wandered into, and was passing through,
tracts of fabulously lovely glades, with groves and grottos green,
watered by never-failing streams of crystal, dotted with clusters of
magnificent palm-trees, and having groves, charming groves, of the
fairest of pines, of groves "whose rich trees wept odorous gums and
balm.
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