Either that, or the loose stuff between lumps of stone-hard pug is periodically washed away, and in the process holes are formed of varying depths. Anyway, the surface is rough as the Bay of Biscay—which is the explanation of the term, I suppose. Where it is met with, the country is flat and subject to heavy floodings; and so it follows that in the rainy seasons those Bay of Biscay plains are converted into shallow, muddy lagoons or impassable lakes.
After the water has evaporated or drained off, and until a pad has been worn through, the journeying over these wretched tracts is so unavoidably jolting and chin-choppy that (so 'tis said) horsemen dismount or stop and loll in their saddles, every hundred yards or so, to rest until their aching jaws and bones re-set and the kinks straighten out of their spinal columns. Walking or cycling over it is as pleasant as walking or cycling up and down a stairway, with the stairs of unequal height and width, blindfolded or in the dark.
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The Lawson Creek rises in the ranges east of the track, and, cutting the road at right angles, flows into Lake Woods just below the mouth of the Newcastle. This latter creek then, coming from the north, is seen at intervals away to the west; and—a strongly running river for months in some rainy seasons—contained, when I passed along, a chain of wide lagoons and lengthy waterholes between its thickly timbered banks.
The water is quite white; not thick, but milky in appearance, a minute quantity of clay or silt being held in suspension. Nevertheless one could hardly wish for more palatable drinking water. But with its peculiar color it is wasted here. A dairyman, now, would go into raptures over it. Indeed, the country about here, what with the excellent pasturage and the abundance of water, was strongly suggestive of overflowing milk pails.
The road crosses the Newcastle Creek before the cattle station, a couple of chains up from the north-westerly bank, is reached; and a very large waterhole (from which, with a well to fall back upon, the station gets its supply) is close by the crossing place.
I had seen many smokes since leaving Powell's Creek, but had not caught sight of any of the natives. To this waterhole, however, had just come in some ten or a dozen weedy ones; but interest in their kind was on the wane, and I gave them scant attention.
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A Chinaman—for we are entering the land of the Chinaman now—was in charge at the Newcastle. A "colonial experience" gentleman was there, but he was on the sick list. Three or four valuable dogs were chained to box kennels around the homestead. In case the blacks showed signs of becoming troublesome, all the person in charge had to do was to unloose one of those dogs, and no blackfellow could come within two miles of the place. Possibly no other fellow either.