Mackay dispelled the illusion; he of all the party seemed ill at ease.
"I didna think the sand-waves extended so far back," he muttered, half to himself. Then he added, aloud, "It's no' a land o' promise you're lookin' at, boys; it's a deceiving land o' misery an' dispair, where many a good man has lost his life."
"But what about the beautiful trees and shrubs?" asked Bob, in wonderment. "They seem to stretch back for miles and miles."
"It's only another case where distance lends enchantment, as the poet says, my lad. Your trees are only saltbush, and instead o' growin' closely, there's over fifty yards between each o' them; it's those behind that fill in the gaps. The eye can never understand the perspective o' this country, the air is so clear that distant objects almost blend wi' what is close at hand."
He spoke truly. When they forced their way at a difficult angle across the vast undulations, they discovered to their sorrow that only the sparsest of vegetation found root on the hill crests, while the long interstices were absolutely barren. Not only this, but the sand on the inclines and declivities was so loosely packed that the camels sank to the knees in their strenuous efforts to scale them, and had to be pulled over the barring obstacles by sheer force.
"A day of this will just about finish Remorse," said Mackay, noting how that meek yet willing animal was labouring under its load. "I think, Bob, we'd better keep in the trough o' these confounded waves until we run oot o' them, I ken we must be near the edge as it is, for I mind that Fortunate Spring was a good day's travel past their eastern limit. That was why the chief called it by that name. We were vera nearly lost on those same ridges; we didna find a drop o' water for over a hundred miles, and we were just about dead beat when we came upon it."
"How far do they run towards the north?" questioned Bob.
"Well, Carnegie, who was one o' the finest explorers that ever handled a sextant, calculated they covered nearly three hundred miles o' West Australia. What their area is God only knows, yet it must be over fifty thousand square miles."
"I should think this would be nearly as bad as the Sahara," said Jack, as he tugged at Misery's rope. "I haven't seen a drop of water since we started, unless that which Bob fell into."
"The Sahara?" echoed Mackay. "Why, we wouldn't ca' it a desert at all. It's only because it's so near the old country that it is considered to be anything extraordinary. This country, Jack, wouldna be an explorer's preserve if it contained as much water as the Sahara. It would be overrun in every direction by gold-miners."