It
might have been a raven; yes, a raven never flitting may be sitting,
may be sitting, on those shattered rocks of wretchedness--on that
Troglodytes' shore, where in spirit I may wander, o'er those arid
regions yonder; but where I wish to squander, time and energies no
more. Though a most romantic region, its toils and dangers legion, my
memory oft besieging, what time cannot restore; again I hear the
shocks of the shattering of the rocks, see the wallabies in flocks,
all trembling at the roar, of the volcanic reverberations, or
seismatic detonations, which peculiar sensations I wish to know no
more. The horses were mustered at last, and at length we were about to
depart, not certainly in the direction I should have wished to go, but
still to something new.
Fort Mueller, of course, was named after my kind friend the Baron*,
who was a personal contributor to the fund for this expedition. It was
really the most astonishing place it has ever been my fortune to
visit. Occasionally one would hear the metallic sounding clang, of
some falling rock, smashing into the glen below, toppled from its
eminence by some subterranean tremour or earthquake shock, and the
vibrations of the seismatic waves would precipitate the rocks into
different groups and shapes than they formerly possessed.
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