Mustard (one of the men with me) being ill, I determined to halt here for breakfast and, having completed this meal, I was sorry to find that he was still too unwell to proceed; such however being the case I was compelled to halt for the day: leaving Coles therefore to take care of him, I strolled off to explore the valley alone. Except in being much larger it differed in no respect from the first in which we encamped, and I found that within about half a mile below the spot where I had left the men it terminated in a salt-water inlet, nearly choked up with mangroves. On returning to them I found Mustard somewhat better; to our annoyance however heavy rain set in, accompanied by thunder and lightning; and as we had no shelter but what some overhanging rocks afforded us we passed a very uncomfortable night.
December 19.
Mustard was still not quite well; we therefore started late and travelled slowly, keeping nearly in a south-east direction. We thus gradually ascended the second sandstone range, the summit of which was a tableland, at this point about half a mile wide.
GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA.
We here remarked a very curious circumstance. Several acres of land on this elevated position were nearly covered with lofty isolated sandstone pillars of the most grotesque and fantastic shapes, from which the imagination might easily have pictured to itself forms equally singular and amusing. In one place was a regular unroofed aisle, with a row of massive pillars on each side; and in another there stood upon a pedestal what appeared to be the legs of an ancient statue, from which the body had been knocked away.
Some of these time-worn columns were covered with sweet-smelling creepers, while their bases were concealed by a dense vegetation, which added much to their very singular appearance. The height of two or three which I measured was upwards of forty feet; and, as the tops of all of them were nearly upon the same level, that of the surrounding country must at one period have been as high as their present summits, probably much higher.
From the top of one of these pillars I surveyed the surrounding country and saw on every side proofs of the same extensive degradation--so extensive, indeed, that I found it very difficult to account for; but the gurgling of water, which I heard beneath me, soon put an end to the state of perplexity in which I was involved, for I ascertained that streams were running in the earth beneath my feet; and, on descending and creeping into a fissure in the rocks, I found beneath the surface a cavern precisely resembling the remains that existed above ground, only that this was roofed, whilst through it ran a small stream which in the rainy season must become a perfect torrent. It was now evident to me that ere many years had elapsed the roof would give way, and what now were the buttresses of dark and gloomy caverns would emerge into day and become columns clad in green, and resplendent in the bright sunshine.
GRADUAL DEGRADATION OF THE LAND.
In this state they would gradually waste away beneath the ever-during influence of atmospheric causes, and the material being then carried down by the streams, through a series of caverns resembling those of which they once formed a portion, would be swept out into the ocean and deposited on sandbanks, to be raised again, at some remote epoch, a new continent, built up with the ruins of an ancient world.
I subsequently, during the season of the heavy rains, remarked the usual character of the mountain streams to be that they rose at the foot of some little elevation which stood upon a lofty tableland composed of sandstone, then flowed in a sandy bed for a short distance and afterwards mysteriously sank in the cracks and crevices made in the rocks from atmospheric influences, and did not again reappear until they had reached the foot of the precipice which terminated the tableland whence they sprang; here they came foaming out in a rapid stream which had undoubtedly worked strange havoc in the porous sandstone rocks among which it held its subterraneous course.